training and development business plan sample

Learning and Development Planning Guide [With Templates]

• Lauren Farrell
• May 18, 2022

As the pace of business increases and unpredictable market forces continue to influence strategy and decision-making, it seems like it’s never been harder to create a plan and stick with it. 

Many organizations are still creating 3-5 year strategies, but they need to be more agile and flexible than ever. Successful businesses (and successful functions within them) are those that can quickly adapt.

Learning and development has steadily carved out a new pathway within the organization in recent years. Executives are sitting up and taking notice of the function’s strategic relevance and potential impact on business success. External forces such as skills obsolescence, global pandemics, and labor shortages have no doubt contributed to the acceleration of this new strategic role for L&D.  

Now that L&D has reached this point, strategic planning is more crucial than ever. Effective learning and development planning is critical to ensuring that employee training can deliver on its promises and directly contribute to business performance. 

So, what should training planning look like for L&D teams in this new, agile business landscape? 

What is included in a training plan?

An L&D plan needs to go beyond a list of courses that you plan to develop throughout the year. It also needs to cover every aspect of the function, from strategy and resource planning to business alignment.

Without this granularity, L&D departments will struggle to move beyond order-taking from the business for ineffective learning interventions and towards a strategically aligned performance influencer. 

Comprehensive L&D Strategy

All learning and development planning should begin with a detailed, comprehensive learning strategy for the organization. A well-developed strategy encompasses everything from your learning and development goals to how and when you plan to execute them within a given timeframe. 

While it can take some time and a fairly extensive level of collaboration with business partners, your L&D objectives should align with the needs and goals of the organization. Once you have clearly defined objectives in place, it becomes much easier to devise training plans that add value and make the best use of your resources.

As part of your training strategy development, you might consider processes such as a detailed learning needs assessment within the organization.

Learning and Development Resource Planning

It’s good to be ambitious with your L&D strategy. But very few teams have an unlimited amount of resources available. So, another key element of successful L&D planning is prioritization.

First, you need to understand what resources are available to you and your team. How many FTE hours will you have throughout the year? What size budget are you working with? 

Next, analyze your resource availability against the demand any planned initiatives will place on these resources. Prioritize initiatives, learning development time, and budget allocation against the impact you expect initiatives to have. 

Cognota has Capacity Planning and Resource Allocation features specifically designed for L&D teams, so you can balance the demand for training against the capacity and availability of your team at any given time. Try a free trial or book a demo to see for yourself.  

What makes a good training plan?

Aside from building out your planned training initiatives, successful learning and development plans also have some core focus areas and characteristics. These items are the difference between creating a well-structured plan and being able to effectively execute it.

Effective Frameworks and Learning Operations

Learning and development strategies are complex and comprise a lot of moving parts. Bringing your objectives to fruition requires the structure, workflows, and processes needed to implement tactics and initiatives effectively.

From the way you work with business partners to how you schedule and track your learning projects, the operations behind your L&D team are the engine room of your strategy implementation. This includes processes and operational considerations such as:

• The structure and skills base of your L&D team
• Training intake and needs assessment
• Project prioritization and planning
• Collaboration with team members, stakeholders, and SMEs
• Project tracking and task management
• Course toryboarding, design, and development
• Content management and updates
• Budget allocation and tracking
• Resource management and capacity planning

Regardless of the size and structure of your L&D department, operational efficiency increases the capacity of your team and the impact they can have on the organization. 

Learning Technology Ecosystem

Mature L&D operations need the right technology behind them to ensure these processes run quickly and smoothly. Many areas of learning operations are also interconnected. But without the right technology in place, processes, documentation, and collaboration remain siloed and disjointed. 

Many L&D teams continue to rely on email, spreadsheets, shared files, and generic tools to manage and run their operations. This leaves team members struggling to collaborate efficiently. Important tasks and documentation slip through the cracks, work is often duplicated, and hours are wasted moving from one tool to another throughout the learning lifecycle. 

For plans to be executed well, learning and development needs a mature and streamlined learning tech stack. Starting with a learning operations platform and including authoring tools and learning delivery technology, the learning tech stack needs to integrate, both from one L&D tool to another and with wider business technology. 

Not only does this provide data and insights needed for informed planning and decision making, but it also elevates the productivity and efficiency of the entire learning lifecycle.  

Business Alignment

As a support function within the organization, learning and development needs to wear multiple hats. While L&D should take the lead from the business in terms of training needs (preferably in a data-driven environment), they must also act as advisors to business partners.

Taking on both these roles is the difference between operating as a department that takes orders blindly from the rest of the business and becoming a strategic influencer and partner that contributes directly and deliberately to business success.

Many L&D teams have successfully positioned themselves as strategic influencers in the organization, and there are many ways to achieve this. For example, some establish learning advisory committees to engage business partners and executives so that learning interventions add value and align with business objectives. 

Regardless of how you achieve it, business alignment is critical to a successful L&D plan. Without it, L&D are left to take last-minute training requests form the business. Or, other departments take training into their own hands without guidance from the team that knows best when it comes to learning interventions.

Buy-In From Stakeholders and Executives

Getting buy-in for training from department managers is one thing. They see the day-to-day need for learning intervention and are naturally more in touch with the performance goals and career aspirations of individual employees. 

However, when it comes to budget approval, increasing headcount, or implementing large scale training programs, you need buy-in from higher up the chain. Championship from executive and senior stakeholders is also critical to smoothing the path with any corners of the organization who may be resistant to training or partnership with L&D. 

From getting your learning plans approved to support for implementation, 

Measuring L&D Success

When you get buy-in from senior management within your organization, it’s imperative that you can prove the results of learning investments. The ability to prove the impact of L&D, especially when that impact can be tied directly to the bottom line of the business, ensures that your department receives the resources it needs. 

When it comes to future learning and development planning, the ability to measure L&D success also enables you to:

• Validate past decisions
• Eliminate training initiatives that lack impact
• Focus resources on effective learning solutions and investments
• Understand where extra resources or capabilities are needed within the department

How to Create a Successful Training Plan

Whether you’re overhauling an existing strategy or starting from scratch, it can be difficult to know where to begin with training and development planning. Best practice is to start as broad as possible and narrow down the focus of your strategy as you go. 

Start with the overall objectives and needs of the organization and steadily work down towards the needs and preferences of individual teams or employees. If you’re starting with a training needs analysis (try this template ), these two areas of focus can work in tandem, so you create an L&D strategy that combines corporate objectives with grassroots input from employees and their managers.

Assess Business Training Needs

At this stage of the training planning process, the first priority is to ensure the L&D strategy is aligned with overall corporate objectives. If your organization does a good job of communicating corporate objectives to individual business units, you’ll have a much easier time understanding how to create and prioritize resources and initiatives for your internal department strategy. 

Other learning leaders may find themselves needing to hunt down information and collaboration with business partners to understand their goals and priorities for the months ahead. This is where ongoing partnerships such as a learning advisory committee come in useful.  

While corporate objectives are an essential part of planning for learning and development, things can change and change quickly. So, while your strategy should align with organization-wide objectives, be prepared to remain agile and flexible.

Determine Learner Needs and Preferences

The C-suite and department leaders may have one idea of the learning initiatives needed. Employees and their line managers may have another idea entirely. While impacting the performance of the business is top priority, employee buy-in and engagement is essential for the success of any learning intervention.

So, whether it takes place alongside an analysis of corporate strategy or after, a comprehensive needs analysis of training and skills development ensures that:

• Employees feel listened to and engage with learning initiatives
• Grass-roots skills gaps are bridged effectively
• Learning content that is appropriate for existing and desired skill levels is developed

Many L&D teams perform a needs analysis like this through detailed questionnaires from both managers and employees. By including questions such as priority level, business impact, and the size of the audience for a potential learning solution as part of these questionnaires, L&D can better select and prioritize projects to include in their planning.

Assess L&D’s Capabilities and Capacity

Last but certainly not least, L&D must assess the demand for training that emerges from corporate goals and needs analysis and balance it against their available resources. Initiatives must be carefully planned for and scheduled to ensure that your team has the capacity to create learning interventions on time and to a high quality. 

Understanding the capabilities and capacity of your team also helps you to create a business case for learning and development workforce planning so you have the budget, headcount, outsourcing, and resources needed to fulfill demand.

Centralize the Planning and Tracking of Your L&D Projects

There’s a lot that goes into effective L&D planning, and spreadsheets don’t quite cut it when it comes time for implementation and tracking. With Cognota, you can plan and manage team capacity, track project progress, and gain insights and visibility into L&D’s resource management, training demand, and more. Check out what Cognota can do for your L&D team’s efficiency and impact with a free trial or by booking a demo .

• Tags: L&D planning , Learning and Development Strategy , Training Plan

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Did you find what you are looking for.

Thinking of starting a school or a coaching business? Or is it about vocational school?

Well, no matter what’s your business segment in the education and training sector—you need a solid business plan to turn it into a long-term success.

This library of education and training business plan samples here can inspire and guide you as you begin to plan your business. So, don’t worry; we got you covered on that part.

Let’s learn more about these sample training and education plans, starting with their benefits.

Benefits of using an industry-specific business plan example

Believe it or not, using an industry-specific business plan example is the best and probably the quickest way of writing a business plan.

Doubt it? Hold, this may change your perception; an extended list of the benefits of using an industry-specific business plan template.

• Inspiration : Reading a business-specific template can be incredibly helpful in getting content inspiration. Furthermore, it helps you gain insights into how to present your business idea, products, vision, and mission.
• Risk-free method : You are taking a reference from a real-life, let’s say, After-school program business plan—so you know this plan has worked in the past or uses a method subscribed by experts.
• Deep market understanding : Analyzing and reading such examples can provide clarity and develop a deeper market understanding of complex industry trends and issues you may not know but relate directly to the realities of your business landscape.
• Increased credibility : A business plan developed using an example follows a standard business plan format, wisely presents your business, and provides invaluable insights into your business. There’s no question it establishes you as a credible business owner, demonstrating your deep business and market understanding.
• Realistic financial projections : Financial forecasting being a critical aspect of your plan, this real-life example can help you better understand how they project their financials—ultimately helping you set realistic projections for your business.

These were the benefits; let’s briefly discuss choosing an education or training business plan template that best suits your business niche.

Choosing an Education or Training Business Plan

This category has business plan templates for various education or tutoring businesses. With many similar business types and templates, you may not find the most suitable one through manual scrolling.

Here are the steps to consider while choosing the most suitable business plan template.

Identify your business type

Are you going to be an online coaching platform? Or a traditional school? Or a general daycare center?

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Search for the template

We have an in-built search feature, so you can easily search for a business-specific template using your business name as a key term(e.g., summer camp business plan). Once you have the search results, choose the most suitable one. Simple as that.

Review the example

Look closely at the content of the sample business plan you are considering. Analyze its sections and components to identify relevant as well as unnecessary areas.

Since all the Upmetrics templates are tailored to specific business needs, there won’t be many fundamental customizations. However, a hybrid business model targeting multiple customer segments may require adjustments.

No big deal—you can view and copy sections from other business plan examples or write using AI while customizing a template.

That’s how you find and select the most suitable business plan for educational services. Still haven’t found the perfect business plan example? Here’s the next step for you.

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Popular Templates

Corporate Training Business Plan [Sample Template]

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business Plans » B2B Sector

Do you want to start a corporate training business? If YES, here is a sample corporate training business plan template & FREE feasibility report. 

If you are a business coach or someone who has background in training, and you want to start a business, then you should consider starting your own corporate training firm. There are many corporate organizations, executives, entrepreneurs and even startups that will be more than willing to patronize your services.

Being a corporate trainer means that you will help your clients handle everything that has to do with training of their employees. That is, your goal as corporate trainer is to improve overall productivity. Starting a corporate training firm is not too expensive except for the money required to rent and furnish an office space.

Running this type of business requires that you should be trained as a brand business coach and a peak performance specialist, and it is indeed a very lucrative business in the United states because every company wants to establish themselves as a world leader in their industry.

If you are truly convinced that starting a corporate training firm is the right business for you to do, then you need to write your own business plan. Below is a sample corporate training firm business plan template that will help you successfully write yours with little or no stress.

A Sample Corporate Training Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

This industry includes companies that offer short duration courses and seminars for management and professional development.

Training is provided through public courses or through employers’ training programs, and the courses can be customized or modified. Instruction may be provided at the company’s training facilities or educational institutions, the workplace or the home and via television or the internet.

A close study of the Business Coaching industry shows that the industry is heavily reliant on demand from its largest market, the middle and senior management of US corporations. After rebounding from a period where businesses cut back on non-essential expenses, including employee business coaching programs, the industry is expected to flourish over the five years to 2017.

Although some companies will use internal resources for training, industry revenue is forecast to increase albeit at a slightly slower rate over the five years to 2022. In the future, the adoption of online training is expected to bolster the industry.

This alternative is a more affordable and flexible option for customers and offers lower operating costs for training providers.

The business coaching industry is in the mature phase of its life cycle and luckily for the industry, the advent of digital media has provided an opportunity for the industry to explore and experience vibrant growth. Of course, the industry is becoming more concentrated, as seen by a few large global firms dominating the market and gaining huge market share.

The Business Coaching industry is indeed a very large industry that is pretty much thriving in all parts of the world especially in developed countries such as United States of America, Canada, united kingdom, Germany, Australia, France and Italy et al.

Statistics have it that in the United States of America alone, there are about 51,532 licensed and registered business coaching cum corporate training firms responsible for employing about 88,222 employees and the industry rakes in a whooping sum of $11 billion annually with an annual growth rate projected at 3.5 percent.

It is important to state that no establishment has a lion share of the available market in this industry. A recent report published by IBISWorld shows that the rapid pace of technological change and overall shorter product life cycles have altered the skills required to be an effective manager.

To keep up with these changes and develop the skills of senior employees, many companies use business coaching seminars, such as the ones offered by the Business Coaching industry.

Large corporations have placed a greater value on seminars and workshops, resulting in higher industry demand. Courses related to new skills such as information technology and change management, have been growing areas for the industry.

As acceptance of the value of professional development and continuing education classes, the industry has benefited immensely because companies looking to host these courses often seek out industry operators.

As a corporate trainer, the key attributes needed to be able to make good success from the trade is patience, enthusiasm, passion about the specific subjects / skills to be tutored, and constant positivity. You are also expected to be highly proactive, be good at planning, preparation, and certain other organizational skills.

It is one thing to have a skill and it is another thing to know how to teach people the skills which is why you must constantly get feedback from your clients to be able to measure their progress and your performance.

2. Executive Summary

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is a U.S based corporate training firm that will be located in Lake Street, Petoskey – Michigan. We have been able to secure a standard office facility in a central business district in Lake Street.

We are a corporate training firm that is set to compete in the highly competitive business coaching cum corporate training industry not only in the United States market, but also in the global market because our clientele base will not be restricted to just businesses and organizations in the United States but in the international market.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. will offer robust corporate training to both corporate organization and individuals. Our core training areas will revolve around management development training, professional development training, quality assurance training and business coaching.

Our business goal is to become one of the leading corporate training firms in the United States of America with high profile corporate clients scattered all around the globe. Our workers are going to be selected from a pool of talented business coaches and corporate training experts in and around Petoskey – Michigan and also from any part of the world as the business grows.

We will make sure that we take all the members of our workforce through the required training that will position them to meet the expectation of the company and to compete with leading corporate training firms in the United States and of course throughout the globe.

At Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. our client’s best interest will always come first, and everything we do will be guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s business needs precisely and completely.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is founded by Jules Atkinson and she will run the business with other partners.

Jules Atkinson is a renowned business coach and corporate trainer. She has over 10 years of experience as a business coach and corporate trainer both in the United States of America and Canada. She has several business coaching and corporate training certifications and is a certified NPL practitioner.

3. Our Products and Services

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is going to offer varieties of corporate training services within the scope of the corporate training and business coaching industry in the United States of America.

Our intention of starting our corporate training business is to help in developing our clients in any skills and knowledge of their choice as it relates to specific useful competencies; we want to help our clients develop their capability, capacity, productivity and performance and of course to also make profits from the corporate training industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the US to achieve our aim and business goal.

We will work hard to ensure that Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. do not just work for clients in the United States of America, but also for clients in other parts of the world. Our service offerings are listed below;

• Providing management development training
• Providing professional development training
• Providing quality assurance training
• Providing business coaching
• Leadership skills
• customer services skills
• Financial management skills
• Management skills
• Interpersonal and Relationship management skills
• Online business Coaching Services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

• Our vision is to build a highly competitive and effective corporate training business that will become the number one choice for both individuals and corporate organizations in and around Petoskey – Michigan and the whole of the United States of America
• Our mission is to provide affordable and highly effective corporate training services to a wide range of clients that cuts across different divides. Our overall business goal is to position Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. to become one of the leading corporate training brands in the industry in the whole of Petoskey – Michigan within the first 5 years of operation.

Our Business Structure

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is a world class corporate training firm that intends starting small in Lake Street, Petoskey – Michigan, but hopes to grow big in order to compete favorably with leading corporate training firms in the United States and of course throughout the globe.

We are aware of the importance of building a solid business structure that can support the kind of world class business we want to own. This is why we are committed to only hiring the best hands within our area of operation.

At Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. we will ensure that we hire people that are qualified, hardworking, and creative, result driven, customer centric and are ready to work to help us build a prosperous business that will benefit all the stakeholders.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our senior management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of five years or more as agreed by the board of trustees of the company. In view of the above, Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. have decided to hire qualified and competent hands to occupy the following positions;

• Chief Executive Officer
• Corporate Trainer cum Business Coaching Specialist

Human Resources and Admin Manager

• Sales and Marketing Executive

Client Service Executive

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Officer – CEO:

• Upsurges management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results; developing incentives; developing a climate for offering information and opinions; providing educational opportunities.
• Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
• Responsible for providing direction for the business
• Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
• Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
• Evaluates the success of the organization

Corporate Trainer/Business Coaching Specialist

• Responsible for providing management development training
• Delivers professional development training
• Provides quality assurance training
• Affords business coaching
• Provides leadership skills training
• Provides customer services skills training
• Provides financial management skills training
• Provides interpersonal and relationship management skills training
• Provides Online business Coaching Services
• Handles other related corporate training, advisory and consulting services
• Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
• Defines job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
• Carries out induction for new team members
• Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
• Oversees the smooth running of the daily office

Sales and Marketing Manager

• Manages external research and coordinate all the internal sources of information to retain the organizations’ best customers and attract new ones
• Models demographic information and analyze the volumes of transactional data generated by customer
• Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts; participates in the structuring and financing of projects; assures the completion of development projects.
• Writes winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with organizations’ policy
• Responsible for handling business research, market surveys and feasibility studies for clients
• Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
• Develops, executes and evaluates new plans for expanding sales
• Creates new markets cum businesses for the organization
• Empowers and motivates the sales team to meet and surpass agreed targets

Accountant/Cashier:

• Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
• Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports; analyzes financial feasibility for the most complex proposed projects; conducts market research to forecast trends and business conditions.
• Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
• Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
• Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
• Responsible for administering payrolls
• Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
• Handles all financial transactions for the organization
• Serves as internal auditor for the organization.
• Ensures that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In center, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
• Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
• Manages administrative duties assigned by the manager in an effective and timely manner
• Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the company’s products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to clients when they make enquiries
• Receives Visitors / clients on behalf of the organization
• Receives parcels / documents for the company
• Handles enquiries via e-mail and phone calls for the organization
• Distributes mails in the organization

6. SWOT Analysis

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. engaged the services of a core professional in the area of business consulting and structuring to assist our organization in building a well – structured corporate training and coaching business that can favorably compete in the highly competitive corporate training industry in the United States and the world at large.

Part of what the consultant did was to work with the management of our organization in conducting a SWOT analysis for Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc.. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc.;

Our core strength lies in the power of our workforce. We have a team of experts in the industry, a team with excellent qualifications and experience in corporate training and business coaching.

Aside from the synergy that exists in our carefully selected faculty members and our strong online presence, Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is well positioned in a community with the right demography and we know we will attract loads of clients from the first day we open our doors for business.

As a new corporate training and business coaching school in Petoskey – Michigan, it might take some time for our organization to break into the market and gain acceptance especially from top profile clients in the already saturated corporate training and business coaching industry; that is perhaps our major weakness.

• Opportunities:

The opportunities in the corporate training industry is massive considering the number of individuals and corporate organizations who would want to acquire business skills and new soft skill sets in order to perform excellently in their jobs and personal life. As a standard corporate training firm, we are ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes our way.

Every business faces a threat or challenge at some part of its cycle. These threats can be external or internal. This shows the importance of a business plan, because most threats or challenges are to be anticipated and plans put in place to cushion what effect they might bring to the business.

Some of the threats that we are likely going to face as a corporate training firm operating in the United States of America are unfavorable government policies that might affect business such as ours, the arrival of a competitor within our location of operation and global economic downturn which usually affects spending / purchasing power.

There is hardly anything we can do as regards these threats other than to be optimistic that things will continue to work for our good.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

• Market Trends

One thing is certain, the trend in the corporate training industry is such that if you want to be ahead of your competitors, you should be able to acquire as much certifications as possible and you should be able to have loads of testimonies from your clients.

The truth is that, if your clients experienced huge difference in their business as a result of contracting their corporate training and business coaching needs, then they will be compelled to help promote your organization.

Another notable trend in this industry is the influence of technology; the advent of technology is responsible for the increase in income generated by corporate trainers all over the world.

With technology, it is now easier for corporate trainers to train students that are thousands of kilometers away from them. Tools like video calling / Skype, YouTube, DVDs and Webcast et al are being used by corporate trainers to train students in different parts of the world.

8. Our Target Market

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is specialized in empowering corporate executives with robust business skills that will help them improve their capacity, capability, efficiency and productivity at work and in their private life.

As a standard corporate training firm, Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. offers a wide range of corporate trainings hence we are well trained and equipped to service a wide range of corporate clients. Our target market as a corporate training firm cuts across people of different classes and people from all walks of life.

We are coming into the corporate training industry with a business concept and company’s profile that will enable us work with clients at different learning stages and different status. Below is a list of the clients that we have specifically design our services for;

• Banks, Insurance Companies and other related Financial Institutions
• Blue Chips Companies
• Corporate Organizations
• Manufacturers and Distributors
• Real Estate Owners, Developers, and Contractors
• The Government (Public Sector)
• Celebrities, Politicians, Public Figures and Public Speakers
• Sport Organizations
• Religious Organizations
• Political Parties and Politicians
• Television Stations
• Printing Press (Publishing Houses) and Authors
• Aspiring celebrities
• Entrepreneurs and Startups

Our Competitive Advantage

The corporate training industry is indeed a very prolific and highly competitive industry. Clients will only hire your services if they know that you can successfully help them acquire a new skill set that will help them to be effective at work and in their organization.

It is the practice for corporate trainers and business coaches to acquire as much certifications as it relates to their area of specialization; it is part of what will make them stay competitive in the industry

We are quite aware that to be highly competitive in the corporate training and business coaching industry means that you should be able to deliver consistent quality service, your clients should be able to experience remarkable difference and improvement and you should be able to meet the expectations of your clients at all times.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. might be new in Petoskey – Michigan, but our management team and the owner of the business are considered gurus in the industry.

They are licensed and highly qualified corporate trainers that can successfully build corporate skills in people with zero proficiency to an 8 or 10 on a scale of 10 within a short period of time. These are part of what will count as a competitive advantage for us.

Aside from our robust experience as corporate trainers, we have a very strong online presence that will enable us train clients in different parts of the world from our online portals.

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category in the industry. It will enable them to be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our business aims and objectives.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

• Sources of Income

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the corporate training industry and we are going to go all the way to ensure that we do all it takes to attract clients on a regular basis. Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. will generate income by offering the following corporate training services;

• Online Business Coaching Services

10. Sales Forecast

One thing is certain, there would always be corporate organizations, government agencies, non – profits and individuals who would need the services of corporate training firms to help train their staff.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is well positioned to take on the available market in the corporate training and business coaching industry and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income from our first six months of operation and grow our firm to enviable heights.

We have been able to critically examine the corporate training marketing space, we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast.

Below are the sales projections for Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc., it is based on the location of our business and of course the wide range of our corporate trainings and business coaching we offer and our target market;

• First Fiscal Year: $200,000
• Second Fiscal Year: $500,000
• Third Fiscal Year: $750,000

N.B : This projection was done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and there won’t be any major competitor offering same corporate training as we do within the same location. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

• Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy

We are mindful of the fact that there are stiff competitions amongst corporate training firms in the United States of America; hence we have been able to hire some of the best marketing experts to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited based on their vast experience in the industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc.

We will also ensure that our clients’ becomes experts with the skills they acquire; we want to build a first – class corporate training firm that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from our satisfied clients.

Our goal is to grow Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. to become one of the top 10 corporate training firms in the United States of America which is why we have mapped out strategies that will help us take advantage of the available market and grow to become a major force to reckon with not only in Petoskey – Michigan but also in other cities in the United States of America.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

• Introduce our corporate training and business coaching firm by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to corporate organizations, government agencies, NGOs and key stake holders in and around Petoskey – Michigan.
• Print out fliers and business cards and strategically drop them in offices, libraries, public facilities and train stations et al.
• Use friends and family to spread word about our corporate training and business coaching firm
• Post information about our corporate training and business coaching firm on bulletin boards in places like schools, libraries, and local coffee shops.
• Place a small classified advertisement in the newspaper, or local publication about our firm
• Use referral networks such as agencies that will help match clients with our corporate training firm
• Advertise our firm in relevant educational magazines, newspapers, TV and radio station.
• Attend relevant educational expos, seminars, and business fairs et al
• Engage direct marketing approach
• Encourage word of mouth marketing from loyal and satisfied clients

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We have been able to work with our in – house brand and publicity consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market.

We are set to become the number one choice for both corporate clients and individual clients in the whole of the United States and beyond which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our corporate training firm.

Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc.;

• Place adverts on both print (newspapers and magazines) and electronic media platforms
• Sponsor relevant community based events / programs
• Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our services
• Install our billboards in strategic locations all around Lake City Petoskey – Michigan
• Engage in roadshows from time to time in targeted neighborhoods
• Distribute our fliers and handbills in target areas
• Contact corporate organizations, non – profits and government agencies by calling them up and informing them of Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. and the services we offer
• List Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. in local directories / yellow pages
• Advertise Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. in our official website and employ strategies that will help us pull traffic to the site.
• Ensure that all our staff members wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our company logo.

12.  Our Pricing Strategy

At Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. we will keep the prices of our services below the average market rate for all of our customers by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance from corporate organizations who would hire our services. In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to all our customers at regular intervals.

We are aware that there are some one – off jobs or government contracts which are always lucrative, we will ensure that we abide by the pricing model that is expected from contractors or organizations that bid for such contracts.

So also, there are some clients that would need regular access to corporate training and business coaching consultancy and advisory services, we will offer flat rate for such services that will be tailored to take care of such clients’ needs.

• Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. will make available to her clients;

• Payment via bank transfer
• Payment with cash
• Payment via credit cards
• Payment via online bank transfer
• Payment via check
• Payment via mobile money transfer
• Payment via bank draft

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment for our services without any stress on their part. Our bank account numbers will be made available on our website and promotional materials.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

It is a known fact that in setting up any business, the amount or cost will depend on the approach and scale you want to undertake.

If you intend to go big by renting a place, then you would need a good amount of capital as you would need to ensure that your employees are well taken care of, and that your facility is conducive enough for workers to be creative and productive.

The materials and equipment that will be used are nearly the same cost everywhere, and any difference in prices would be minimal and can be overlooked. As for the detailed cost analysis for starting a standard corporate training and business coaching; it might differ in other countries due to the value of their money.

However, this is what it would cost us to setup Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. in the United of America;

• Business incorporating fees in the United States of America will cost – $750.
• The budget for Liability insurance, permits and license will cost – $3,500
• Leasing / renting an office space in a good location in Lake Street Petoskey – Michigan that will accommodate the number of employees for at least 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) will cost – $150,000.
• The cost for furnishing and equipping the office (computers, printers, projectors, markers, servers / internet facility, furniture, telephones, filing cabinets, and electronics) will cost – $30,000
• The amount required to purchase the needed software applications – $3,500
• Launching an official website will cost – $500
• The amount need to pay bills and staff members for at least 2 to 3 months – $70,000
• Additional Expenditure such as Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions will cost – $5,000
• Miscellaneous – $5000

Going by the report from the market research and feasibility studies conducted, we will need about two hundred and fifty thousand ( 250,000 ) U.S. dollars to successfully set up a medium scale but standard corporate training and business coaching firm in the United States of America.

Generating Funding/Startup Capital for Shae’s Touch Studios Business

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is a private registered business that will be owned, financed and managed by Jules Atkinson and other partners. They are the financiers of the business which is why they decided to restrict the sourcing of the startup capital for the business to just three major sources.

These are the areas we intend generating our startup capital;

• Generate part of the startup capital from personal savings and sale of his stocks
• Generate part of the startup capital from friends and other extended family members
• Generate a larger chunk of the startup capital from the bank

N.B: We have been able to generate about $100,000 ( Personal savings $85,000 and soft loan from family members $15,000 ) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $150,000 from our bank. All the papers and documents have been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

It is an established fact that, the future of a business lies in the number of loyal customers they have, the capacity and competence of their employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business, then it won’t be too long before the business close shop.

One of our major goals of starting Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without the need for injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running.

We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to offer our services a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and we are well prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.

Jules Atkinson & Co® Corporate Training Firm, Inc. will make sure that the right foundation, structures and standard operating processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and retraining of our workforce is at the top burner of our business strategy.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of five years or more as determined by the board of the organization. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List/Milestone

• Business Name Availability Check: Completed
• Business Incorporation: Completed
• Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts various banks in the United States: Completed
• Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
• Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
• Securing a standard office facility in a good location in Lake Street, Petoskey – Michigan: Completed
• Application for business license and permit: Completed
• Purchase of Insurance for the Business: Completed
• Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
• Generating part of the startup capital from the founders: Completed
• Writing of Business Plan: Completed
• Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
• Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
• Design of Logo for the business: Completed
• Secure trademark for our products: In Progress
• Printing of Promotional Materials: Completed
• Recruitment of employees: In Progress
• Purchase of the needed furniture, office equipment, software applications, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
• Creating Official Website for the business: In Progress
• Creating Awareness for the business: In Progress
• Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
• Establishing business relationship with vendors and key players in various industries: In Progress

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Human Resources (HR)

How to Create a Learning and Development Plan [Templates Inside]

Over the years, we’ve seen the business environment evolve beyond what is considered traditional, making the concept of creating an ’employee development plan’ more important than ever.

This has become even more prominent when we factor in the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and the increase of remote workers and hybrid working business models. In addition to workplace environmental restructuring, more than ever, all hands must be on deck with high-performing employees to deal with the new demands of this dynamic business future.

How to turn professional goals into an action plan

Yet, in turn, these employees still have career goals, professional goals, and a desired career path that must be respected and achievable through an action plan to diminish employee turnover.

Organizations need to embrace, more than ever, a learning and development strategy that helps employees cope with these situations. This includes providing learning programs, additional benefits, and career development plans that can be achieved in a realistic timeline to help your employees grow professionally and achieve their own goals and goals for your business through actionable steps.

Several studies  suggest that employee training and the implementation of employee development plans benefit both the company and its workers. For this reason, development opportunities and learning programs remain some of the top considerations for job seekers today.

However, organizational learning and development plans and strategies also have to be effective, achieve goals, and aim to diminish obvious staff skill gaps. 

As HR and senior management organize the right training programs and employee development plans , employees must be appropriately positioned to receive them. 

So, how do you ensure harmony among all the different parts and players to achieve goals?

In this guide, we’ll explore all there is to know about learning and development in the context of employee training, the benefits, and how a business can set up a successful learning and career development strategy. You’ll also find examples and related human resources templates on how you can create that action plan and success strategy yourself. Visualize roadmaps through timelines , presentations , and planners .

Table of Contents

What is a learning and development plan, why your organization needs a learning and development plan.

• How to create and roll out a solid learning and development plan in 6 steps 
• 5 learning and development plan examples and templates you can use 

Want a head start with your learning and development plan? Grab our hot-off-the-press employee development plan templates for your learning and development projects. They’re easy to edit and customize! Get your learning and development templates .

A learning and career development plan involves the continuous educational processes of learning new working methods and concepts, improving skills, and gaining more knowledge about one’s duties within a company.

Organization development programs update staff on new trends, skills, and technologies within the global workforce. 

It also serves to inform workers of new policies, laws, and safety information, as well as organizational procedures and rules.

If properly organized and carefully followed through, a learning and professional development plan will benefit an organization in several ways. 

These are some of the crucial upsides to investing in an employee development plan.

In the past, employee development was carried out to improve productivity. Now, it also focuses on attracting top talent, especially in industries where there are a good number of opportunities for staff to switch employers. 

The opportunity to learn more and develop through a structured development plan is undoubtedly one of the key considerations when selecting an employer. 

Employees want to remain relevant, and they recognize that that is only made possible with a professional development plan in place. 

Therefore, a good learning and development plan appeals to potential hires and helps retain talent within a company’s workforce. And just like in sales –  replacing employees is much more expensive  than acquiring them, with a 2020 Work Institute study showing voluntary employee turnover  costs U.S. businesses more than $630 billion annually.

2. Provide upskilling and career development opportunities

Learning and development plans provide upskilling opportunities. This empowers your workforce to perform their duties better and prepare for new or more responsibilities that align more with their strengths. 

3. Enhance employee capability

An organization’s human capital is a key part of the development process, which is why its knowledge base needs to be consistently updated to avoid a decline in capability. 

Staff learning contributes to this and positions the organization better towards success when hitting its development goals. For example, if you aim to enrich your blog post with unique guest posts, you can train your staff to use an AI detector to discover AI-generated content. 

In fact, companies that invest in their staff and leaders during transformational changes are  2.4 times more likely to achieve their performance targets. 

4. Recognize an organization’s strengths and weaknesses

When an organization invests in learning and professional development plans, the avenues to recognize strengths and weaknesses open up.

This makes it possible to maintain the positives and continuously grow their strengths while developing skills to strengthen their weaknesses. This increases the overall confidence within the company and maintains a healthy working environment .

5. Ensure brand consistency throughout the company

Updating staff on the latest industry trends and internal policies ensures transparency. This structure reinforces policies that are well-known and breeds  collaboration among employees .

6. Improve company values and culture

The reality of today’s workforce is an increasingly hybrid and global model, with teams dispersed across a wide range of locations. 

Despite having employees working from different places, a company must maintain its values-based culture and build a sense of community. An effective learning plan is required to instill this into employees regardless of where they work to be considered a success. 

7. Boost employee performance and productivity

One of the ultimate aims of a learning and development strategy is to enhance performance and productivity. Your workforce will understand their roles better and develop new skills, improved confidence, and a sense of responsibility to handle tasks more appropriately.

8. Increase customer satisfaction

A trained workforce is crucial in increasing customer satisfaction .

When your staff understands their roles, have confidence, and are dedicated to the company’s goals, the customers get improved services and remain happy with the company’s services.

How To Create and Roll Out a Solid Learning and Development Plan in 6 Steps

Now that you already know the benefits of learning and development in an organization, your next step is to develop a plan and implement it. 

The implementation and delivery to employees are just as important. 

Below are the steps for achieving a successful learning and development strategy.

Assess your organization’s objectives

A good starting point when creating an employee’s development training program is to assess the organization’s goals, business objectives, and general strategy. 

This part should form the bedrock of your strategy – because for any program to work, it has to align with business goals.

A learning and development strategy that is not in agreement with company objectives could be irrelevant or, worse, hurt the company’s growth. Therefore, it’s essential to engage senior management for this step. 

The HR department should create a checklist of goals and consider whether the program contributes or not. 

You can use the sample checklist below as a starting point:

• Where does the business aim to be in the next 5, 10, or 15 years?
• What values is the business known for?
• How can the business be more competitive?
• How can new technology trends affect the business?
• How does the training help the business expand?

These and other relevant questions based on the company’s goals should help clarify employee development needs about the overall business strategy.

2. Find out your employees’ learning and professional development needs

The workforce should be at the core of any business and its learning and development strategy.

Since the whole idea behind a development program is to improve employee capabilities and employee performance, their individual growth needs should be at the top of the list.

Not only will this increase employees’ learning, but it will also encourage employees to perform better, be engaged, and promote retention.

This step will clarify the skills of the employee and what they need to do to improve their performance. It also prevents a one-size-fits-all approach to learning and development, except for general programs, such as social learning and health or safety training.

The HR department needs to effectively formulate assessment methods to determine the team’s learning and development needs. This is typically done through supervisors and creating self-assessments.

Self-assessment can be tricky with tendencies of false information, but if used correctly, it may also be the best form of getting data from employees.

At this point, it is important to stress the need to constantly communicate with employees and incorporate them into the company’s core belief systems and decision-making processes.

3. Design the process

Based on the first two steps above, the HR department should be able to create a learning and development plan that works for the business and its employees. 

There is already a foundation of organizational priorities, and the professional development needs are clarified. 

Next, the development strategy should use modern training methods like  presentation software  while considering budget, timing, training contents, and materials.

These are examples of some modern training methods :

• In-person sessions
• Classroom style sessions
• Online training
• Certification programs
• Mentoring 
• Conferences

Companies can determine the most effective learning methods based on strategic objectives and intended business impact. They may also consider employee preferences and experiences. 

4. Roll out the programs

Training delivery and support are essential steps in ensuring the professional development of employees.

No matter how much planning you’ve put into the development strategy, the main purpose is to deliver a robust learning experience creating additional skills.

Trainings also need to be delivered in feasible mediums. For example, a business with a hybrid remote work model may have the option to host or create online courses for those who can’t attend in person.

5. Assess individual and overall performance

According to a   LinkedIn report , less than 10% of CEOs report seeing the business impact of their learning and development strategy. 

These numbers are shockingly low and could be traced to several factors, such as not identifying the actual training needs of employees or failing to deliver the training effectively and engagingly. 

Nevertheless, you must always assess the impact of these learning and development programs. 

Feedback from participants is one of the standard methods, but assessing individual and aggregated performance after the program rollout will give you the best picture. 

Make sure to set up key performance indicators to measure how much of the new skills employees were able to retain and use and the impact on company performance and processes. This reveals pending issues and future requirements for subsequent training.

6. Improve learning and professional development strategy

Lastly, you can improve your learning and development strategy by addressing employee feedback.

Allow employee feedback and consider whether you have to revise company learning objectives, adjust employee needs, or switch up the process.

5 Learning and Professional Development Plan Examples & Templates

Since it can be challenging to create a functional training strategy, we’ve developed a few learning and development templates that you can use. 

You can apply any of them by replacing the details with relevant data from your company.

1. Learning and professional development plan template

2. Team development plan template

3. Manager and employee development progress checklist

4. Employee training newsletter template

5. Learning and development plan template for reporting

Another benefit of these development plan templates is the speed at which you can create your learning and development checklists and reports.

Take it from Lindsey Mullins, an instructional designer working at one of the biggest retail brands in the United States. Together with her team, Lindsey creates learning and development content through visuals like infographics and presentations .

“Within Piktochart, the templates can be customized to create a beautiful and professional visual using half the time with a different program or when starting from scratch,” says Lindsey.

Watch the short video clip below to learn the different ways that Lindsey and her team use Piktochart for their organization’s learning and development plan projects. With Piktochart’s infographic maker , it’s easy to create learning and development visuals.

Getting Started With Your Learning and Development Plan Template

Now that you understand the importance of a learning and development strategy for a business, there’s no better time for planning to identify and dedicate resources to create a template document that works for your team.

A lot of these training programs may end up being ineffective. This happens when companies make assumptions, don’t carefully communicate with employees, or skip any of the steps outlined above to develop a successful program. 

As mentioned above, it is essential to make your learning and development strategies employee-focused. Planning them at the center of the project ensures streamlined and practical training for your team. However, it should also be aligned with your company goals and be delivered in an engaging and feasible way.

While this project may seem a bit daunting at first, the reward is worth it; for your business, for you as a manager, and for your hardworking team. Focusing on and prioritizing employees’ professional goals, career goals, and desired career path makes for happy, productive, and loyal staff. It can help employees perform and accomplish tasks better, foster cooperation, reduce employee turnover, and promote job growth externally and internally in an organization.

Use the templates above as starting points for performance reviews and more.  If you want to explore more relevant templates or have a specific development plan template in mind, you can  create a free Piktochart account . 

Want a head start with your learning and development projects?

Grab our hot-off-the-press templates for your learning and development goals in your organization. They’re easy to edit and customize!

Jessica La is a writer with over six years in the SEO, AI, and content industry. In her blog ByJessicaLa.com , she explores all things marketing and is passionate about the unique ways businesses can improve, innovate and grow. You can reach her at [email protected]

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Top 10 Training and Development Plan Templates with Examples and Samples

Taranjeet Singh

In modern business, envision this scenario: A dedicated team armed with talent and potential, eagerly poised to conquer new challenges. The path to success is all ready, yet without proper guidance and nurturing and staying abreast of new technology, even the most promising and talented teams can lose their way. The only way to ensure teams and organizations are up to speed with the current business environment is continuous and regular training and development plans.

Achieve team success with our Training Scorecard Templates – the ultimate tool to track progress and drive peak performance!"

This realization has thrust Training and Development Plans into the spotlight as the roadmap to honing skills, fostering innovation, and enhancing productivity. However, the challenge often lies in designing these plans, aligning them with organizational goals, and ensuring these cater to unique team dynamics.

Unlock Your Success with our Action Plan Templates – your blueprint to achieving goals faster and smarter!"

Enter SlideTeam’s Training and Development Plan Templates. These templates are catalysts that bridge the gap between potential and performance. Imagine having a full framework at your fingertips, that experts have deisgned and fortified with industry best practices.

These templates are not rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions; they are 100% editable and customizable blueprints that accommodate your team’s specific needs and aspirations. 

Get More Success with Our Expertly Crafted Career Development Plan Templates !

In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of these templates in empowering teams, delve into the key components that formulate an effective plan, and reveal the transformative impact they can have on an organization’s growth trajectory.

Template 1: Training and Development Strategy PowerPoint Deck 

Enhance your workforce potential with our comprehensive PowerPoint Deck. Use these templates to get your own dynamic tracking dashboards, insightful statistics, concise pie charts, streamlined flowcharts, and effective checklists. Empower your team's growth journey, streamline strategies, and foster skill development seamlessly. Elevate presentations with data-driven precision, fostering engagement and clarity. Revolutionize your training initiatives with a download. 

Download Now!

Template 2: Training Plan for Organization Management and Employees PowerPoint PPT Framework

Raise your workforce potential with PPT Template in 12 slides. Illuminate your organization’s path to success through an Annual Training Plan report, strategically fostering growth and empowering employees with targeted skill enhancement using our specialized training templates. This PPT Template also helps you visualize complex data with the Gantt Chart for On-job Training, optimizing efficiency. These templates offer seamless integration, ensuring your message resonates and revolutionizes how you present training plans. Drive productivity, foster skill development, and streamline operations using these dynamic resource. Get it now!

Template 3: Training and Development Plan for Crisis Management Team PowerPoint Template

Enhance crisis readiness with our this one-page PowerPoint Template that trains people to respond, rather than react. Integrate simulation exercises, cutting-edge Virtual Reality tech, and immersive offline workshops and streamline training with clear, precise documentation of purpose, trainees, trainers, duration, and budget in this user-friendly tabular format. Empower your team to adeptly manage crises, making informed decisions. Download this invaluable PPT template.

Template 4: Seven-Week Employees Training and Development Plan PowerPoint Layout

This one-page PowerPoint Template brings together training details: Topics covered, training modes, hours allocated, weeks of the program, and status updates. Streamline your employee growth with organized information and drive efficiency and skill-building with a structured approach. Whether for new hires or upskilling, this template ensures clarity in training progression. Equip your team with the knowledge they need to excel. Get this presentation template now.

Template 5: Agile Marketing Team Training and Development Plan PowerPoint Template

Use this PowerPoint Template to outline training programs, assigned trainers, modes of training, and development activities on one page and stay ahead of timelines and deadlines. The result is a culture of efficiency, beter identification of skill gaps and addressing employees’ work-related weakenesses. Lift your team’s skills, enhance collaboration, and boost results with our dynamic tool. 

Template 6: Individual Training and Development Plan Process PowerPoint PPT

Discover a best personal and professional growth guide with our expert-crafted PowerPoint Resource. Unveil a journey of self-improvement through clear-cut sections like competency framework, training needs analysis, development planning, training delivery, and evaluation. You can elevate your skills with methodical steps, including pinpointing strengths and weaknesses, formulating tailored development strategies, and selecting the ideal training approaches. 

Template 7: Individual Training and Development Plan with Key Skills PowerPoint Theme

This PPT Template helps you enlist essential key skills like market research, data analysis, problem solving, project management, and business orientation. tailor your learning experience with our Use this presentation template to deploy an intensity scale ranging from high to low, ensuring the training matches your pace. You can also document each skill’s intricacies through detailed description sections featuring customizable bullet points. Whether you are a self-starter or aiming for professional growth, this tool empowers you. Download now.

Template 8: Training and Development Plan of  Supervisor PPT Template

This one-page PowerPoint Slide is designed to streamline the process of nurturing effective supervisors. Tabulate key details such as the date, name, direct report, job role, and role objectives and clearly outline the role requirements as well, ensuring supervisors meet and exceed expectations. The template includes an efficiency score scale, ranging from 1 to 6 to assess current capabilities, paving the way for targeted improvement. Lay out training modules, timelines, and resources required for seamless developmental journey. Download now and empower your supervisors to realize their full potential. 

Template 9: Process for Implementing Individual Training and Development Plan PowerPoint Layout

This one-page PPT Template is your roadmap to success, driving you through each phase. Begin by assessing your team’s requirements and gaining a clear understanding of their needs. Based on this, create a tailored plan and aligning training objectives with organizational goals. The presentation template includes a segment on effective training delivery, ensuring a dynamic learning experience. Next, evaluate the results – a crucial step to fine-tune your strategies and measure progress. Each phase is segmented into bullet points, offering concise insights for every process stage. Download this presentation now and revolutionize your training initiatives.

Template 10: Setting Organizational Training and Development Plan PPT Template

This dynamic one-page PowerPoint Tool revolutionizes the way you strategize training initiatives. You can prioritize training programs on a scale of 1-4, assign target audience and timing, and anticipate benefits for the organization and individuals. You can track costs in dollars, assign responsibility for arrangement, and mark review dates for Programs A, B, C, and D. This template streamlines your training planning process, ensuring informed decisions and resource optimization.

TRAINING ONLY WAY  TO STAY RELEVANT

Training and Development Plan Templates are indispensable tools in sculpting proficient and resilient teams. These templates align skill enhancement with strategic goals, and you can embrace these to ingrain a culture of continuous learning, taking your organization toward sustained success.

FAQs on Training and Development Plan

How do you write a training and development plan.

To craft a training and development plan, identify goals, assess needs, and define objectives. Create tailored content, select suitable methods (e.g., workshops, e-learning), and set a timeline. Incorporate feedback loops for improvement, evaluate progress, and adjust in real-time. Regularly update content to align with evolving organizational needs.

What is included in a training and development plan?

A training and development plan encompasses skill-building activities tailored to employee growth. It comprises needs assessment, goal setting, curriculum design, workshops, e-learning, mentoring, and performance evaluation. Continuous updates ensure alignment with organizational objectives and individual aspirations, fostering professional evolution and enhanced performance.

What are the five processes in training and development?

The five processes in training and development encompass needs assessment, design, delivery, evaluation, and feedback. Firstly, needs are identified, followed by curriculum design. The material is then delivered through methods, and its effectiveness is evaluated. Feedback is gathered to refine and enhance future training initiatives.

What are the four phases of training and development?

The four phases of training and development are:

• Needs Assessment: Identifying learning requirements.
• Design & Planning: Developing training content and strategy.
• Implementation: Delivering training to participants.
• Evaluation: Assessing effectiveness and refining the training process for continuous improvement.

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Free Training Plans Templates for Business Use

By Kate Eby | May 31, 2018

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A training plan holds you accountable for your actions by providing documentation to track and monitor progress toward a goal. To save you time, we’ve provided the top free, downloadable training plan templates for business use .

You'll also find details on what a training plan is , the benefits of using one , and tips on how to write one .

Free Training Plan Templates

In this section, you’ll find training plan templates available in Microsoft Excel and Word formats, as well as PDF. Download all of the following templates for free, and customize them to meet your organizational needs.

Staff Training Plan Template

‌   Download Excel Template

Try Smartsheet Template   ‌

A team or department manager can use this template to document their entire staff’s progress at once. You’ll find multiple charts to track knowledge areas, award competency scores, and list formal trainings and meetings (as well as who has attended them or completed the necessary tasks). This template enables you to monitor both hard and soft skills so that you can get a composite view of each employee’s progress.

Monthly Training Plan Template

Try Smartsheet Template  

This template provides a useful schedule to help you plan your training over the course of a month. List details such as department, training contact, topic, and location, and then complete the prebuilt schedule with training dates and times. To track your progress, use the provided columns to mark milestones. Use this template as a high-level monthly planning tool to ensure you’ve organized training sessions and met your goals.

Weekly Training Plan Template

Download Weekly Training Plan Template

Excel | Word | PDF

This simple training plan template is designed to track team or department progress on training activities over the course of a week. List the employee, activity, and desired outcome, and use the weekly calendar either to plan training sessions or to mark whether or not the employee completed the training work. Finally, leave remarks on each employee’s performance and sign off for approval at the end of the week. This template is especially relevant for a manager or a lead who needs to oversee multiple team members’ development over a short period of time.

Daily Training Plan Template

Download Daily Training Plan Template

Use this template to plan and track daily training tasks for a single team member. At the top of the template, list employee and training contact info, the department, and the goals or desired outcomes. In the chart below, list time, task, and duration of training, and sign each row as the employee completes an activity. Create a separate daily training plan for each team member to track their progress individually.

Annual Training Plan Template

‌   Download Word Template

This comprehensive annual training plan template is available as Word and PDF files. Create a narrative-style training plan with separate sections for background information, critical needs, goals, performance metrics, estimated budget, milestone schedule, and revisions. This template is best for teams that need to formally document their training efforts. For those who need a quick visual overview of progress, check out the simple annual calendar templates in this article .

Employee Training Plan Template

Download Employee Training Plan Template

Excel | Word | PDF  | Smartsheet

Use this Excel template to create a training plan for an individual employee. List employee information, including ID number, position, department, and reviewer credentials, and then create a list of activities for Week 1, and for 30, 60, and 90 days out. The template includes columns for you to note whether the activity is active or on hold, the point of contact for each growth area, status, and observations — all of which will help you measure employee progress and keep them accountable.

New Employee Training Plan Template

‌ Download New Hire Training Plan Template - Excel

This template is designed as an onboarding plan you can use to ensure new hires complete all the necessary training, paperwork, and activities as they acclimate to their new role. The template includes sections for activities completed through management, HR, IT, and peers, and it lists sample activities that a new employee might need to accomplish. Track the new hire’s orientation and integration from the first day through the first year with this easy-to-use template.

Project Plan Template

‌ Download Project Plan Template - Excel

Sometimes, training can occur on the job. One way to ensure that you stay on track — in time, on budget, and within resources — is to create a project plan that outlines all the tasks, activities, and milestones you need to accomplish en route to your objectives or deliverables. Download this project plan template in Excel to list all tasks, assign team members and due dates, and note progress with the built-in Gantt chart , all the way through to project completion.

What Is a Training Plan?

A training plan is a document that details the strategy and specific steps needed to accomplish a goal or an objective. You can create a training plan for nearly any undertaking, such as a business or creative project, team development, staff or new hire training, or a personal endeavor (such as a running a marathon ). Regardless of the objective, training plans hold you accountable for intentions, actions, tasks, or activities that must be completed en route to a larger goal.

Many different business roles can make use of a training plan, including trainers and instructors, managers, staff, employees, IT, support representatives, or the entire organization. Colleges and universities also frequently use training plans to track their progress toward a goal.

What Is a Training Action Plan?

A training action plan is a document that you create prior to the training plan, and lists only the actions necessary to achieve a particular goal. As opposed to a training plan, a training action plan does not include strategy or scheduling information. To learn more about action plans and to download action plan templates, read this article .

Benefits of a Training Plan

Building a training plan can help ensure the success of the project, onboarding , skill building, or other objectives you aim to achieve. By providing a road map to success, a training plan ensures that you accomplish tasks and meet milestones along the way to your overarching goal. In addition, a strong training plan can offer the following underlying benefits:

• Aid you in preparing objective, needs, strategy, and curriculum to be addressed when training participants
• Improve trainer and training participants’ experience by providing a clear plan of action
• Ensure that each training session is well planned, helpful, and inspiring
• Gain much needed expertise and experience, which can help you achieve your goal

Ultimately, these benefits can make it easier to accomplish your goals. Training plans play a vital part in making your organization more profitable, beating the competition, and creating a thriving work culture.

How Do You Design a Training Program?

Before you write your training plan, you’ll need to do some strategic thinking and create a program structure that reflects both the needs and abilities of your workforce and your goals. Designing a training program will vary based on the industry and type of undertaking, but some general tips can apply to any workforce training:

• Identify Training Needs: In order to design an adequate training program, you need to know your needs. Perform a training needs assessment in which you identify your goals, the tasks required to reach them, and the training activities that will support them.
• Set Learning Objectives: Once you have identified your needs, define what you want your workforce to achieve from an educational perspective. What do you want your employees to learn? How will you tangibly test knowledge growth?
• Create Training Materials: In most cases, providing your trainees with materials of some sort (be it physical or online documentation, or quizzes, games, etc.) will greatly enhance their learning and retention. Get creative and find useful ways to increase the “stickiness” of your training curriculum.
• Implement the Training Plan: Next, you have to execute the plan you’ve designed. Make sure to document progress, and note any problems or inconsistencies that arise. Use a training plan template (included above) to document and support implementation.
• Repeat Steps as Necessary: The goal of any training plan is to increase knowledge and skills, and you can’t rush the learning process. Take your time and ensure that everyone is getting the deep learning and practice that they need to be successful.
• Evaluate Training: This is a key element to the long-term success of your training plan. Elicit feedback from participants and managers, and refine your design for future use.

How Do You Write a Training Plan?

Just as the design of your training plan will vary based on your organization and specific goals, so will the documentation of your training plan. The templates included in this article offer a range of structures and styles, but you can customize all of them to fit your needs.

If you want to create your own document, here is a basic list of what to include in your written training plan:

• Objectives: List your goals, and make sure they are measurable and specific.
• Duration: Ideally, your training plan should be flexible, offer an approximate, realistic duration of the plan to give participants an idea of what to expect, and aid managers in evaluating performance. Some training plans include multiple future dates at which to measure performance (for example, 30, 60, and 90 days).  
• Venue/Facility: If you are hosting a workshop, include details about the venue and facility, such as directions and special instructions.
• Dates/Times: If there are specific meeting times that staff needs to attend, make sure to list them on the plan.
• Activities and Learning Strategies: Depending on how comprehensive your training plan is, consider including a section where you detail the activities and knowledge areas in which you hope to see improvement. However, not all training plans require this level of detail.
• Milestones: Include room to mark key milestones, as well as space for dates and a signature if applicable. You might also want to include a section to rank accomplishments or competencies along the way.
• Approval Signature: Include a space for the manager or lead contact to sign off once the training program is completed.

Train and Retain Your Best Employees with Smartsheet for HR

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

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Blog Training and Development

20+ Training Plan Templates for Every Business Need

By Jennifer Gaskin , Oct 26, 2022

An employee training plan acts as the ultimate cheat sheet for building a successful workforce. After all, a company is only as good as its people. So, whether you’re bringing in new staff, transitioning someone to a new role or up-skilling professionals in their current job, it pays to create effective training plans .

Though investing in training can be expensive, not making sure your employees have the skills they need is even costlier — from the risk of mistakes to simply falling behind your competition.

But you can save time and money developing these programs by starting with a training plan template . Keep reading for tips and templates to help you supply your team with the training they need to succeed.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a training plan?

What is a training plan template, what should a training plan include, how do you create a training plan, 21 training plan templates for every business needs.

A training plan is a visually organized document detailing the steps and resources needed to teach a worker a new set of skills, task or policy. There are many types of training plans, depending on the specific needs of the company and the employee.

Training plans are useful not only for organizing resources for workers, but employers can also use them to track performance progress and see at a glance where their teams’ greatest skill deficiencies may be.

Managers can also use training plans (and their knowledge of how well workers have done under them) when making advancement decisions.

Learn more about creating a successful employee training and development program built on visual communication.

A training plan template is an existing, blank document that managers can fill in to describe the path needed to train a worker on a new task, get a new hire ready to roll or otherwise ensure an employee is able to achieve their potential.

Training plan templates are ideal for businesses that need to develop many training plans for different types of workers or processes, as this can speed up creation and implementation time (which also speeds up the overall training process).

The exact content and setup of a training plan varies depending on the end goal, but here’s a broad overview of what your training plan should include:

• SMART goals:  Clearly define  what  trainees will  learn and be able to do  by the end (e.g., “use software X proficiently in 2 weeks”).
• Tailored training:   Adapt the program  to the  existing knowledge, skills, and preferred learning styles  of the target audience.
• Content & delivery:  Plan the  specific topics  to be covered,  choose appropriate training methods  (lectures, demonstrations, etc.), and decide the  format  (in-person, online, blended).
• Logistics:   Schedule the training  (duration, frequency),  allocate resources  (trainers, equipment), and determine  methods to assess learning  (quizzes, practical exercises).
• Feedback and improvement:  Establish methods to assess trainee progress and collect input from trainees and trainers to improve future iterations of the training program.

Of course, creating all of these elements is easier said than done. Even if you’re working within an existing template (like one you find on this page), as a manager or business owner, you will still need to put in thoughtful consideration about your organization’s needs.

Follow the key 5 steps below to create an effective training plan:

Step 1: Identifying the training gap

Start by understanding the specific skills or knowledge needed, whether it’s to address performance issues or adapt to new challenges.

Step 2: Build your training framework

Define the overall goals, target audience, and desired outcomes to create a clear roadmap for the training program.

Step 3: Explore resources

Explore internal resources, external vendors, and online platforms to find the most cost-effective and effective delivery method.

Step 4: Collaborating for success

Secure support from key stakeholders like managers, trainers, and even learners to ensure program success.

Step 5: Finalize & refine

Schedule the training, allocate resources, and establish assessment methods to measure learning and refine the program for future iterations.

New hire training plan

Perhaps no single training plan is more important than what is created for new hires. A bad hire is an incredibly costly prospect for any business, and for a small business, it’s especially problematic. That’s because a small business has less wiggle room in the bottom line.

According to Business News Daily , poor onboarding is a leading cause of turnover — costing the company as much as 300 percent of the person’s salary for the unsuccessful training and eventual hiring process to fill their position.

Let’s look at some new employee orientation and onboarding training plans to keep this from happening to your team:

A new hire training plan checklist is a perfect way for the new employee and their supervisor to stay on the same page. Plus, this ensures new hires get all the crucial information they need early on in their tenure. Customize this template with the policies and procedures unique to your company.

Onboarding checklists can help both trainees and managers keep track of all the tasks that need to be done when a new person joins the team. And by monitoring how many boxes are checked, it’s easy to see where you’re falling short.

When you think about it, a new job begins from the day of the hire, not the moment the new person starts working. Seize the opportunity to make sure your internal processes are up to speed before the person even walks in the door with this orientation process checklist template.

With Venngage for Business, you can easily customize a new hire onboarding HR checklist (like the one below) to add relevant company documents. For example, your new hire may be expected to have certain licenses or qualifications; add those to the new hire paperwork section to keep your HR department happy (and legally compliant!).

Make onboarding fun by using the principles of microlearning, which can help overwhelming tasks seem manageable. Keep important materials organized so that your new team members get all the knowledge they need in an accessible format.

New manager training plan

Study after study has confirmed : bad managers — not low salaries or heavy workloads — are the number one reason people leave jobs. In fact, Gallup has found that about 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement scores can be attributed to the quality of the individual’s direct supervisor.

That’s why it’s so important to make sure that from the top down, your management structure is filled with people who have the right temperament and skill set to get the very best out of each team member. Here are some new manager training materials that can put your leadership on the right path:

Just because they’re already in management, that doesn’t mean your team members don’t have further goals. Sit down with them and talk through what they want to accomplish, and then help them visualize how to get there with this career roadmap.

Not sure about using visual content in training ? Let us convince you.

Focus on the team aspect with your new manager training plans by having them creating a mind map like this one. Get them to fill it in with their goals for various aspects of their stepped-up role in your company.

One of the hardest parts of running a company is identifying people who have management potential. Use this chart to help you understand the difference between those who would be good first-line managers and those who might have executive potential.

Though this template was created to supplement an annual performance review, it’s also an effective tool for training a new manager.

Have them plot where they perceive themselves to be on a matrix (customize it easily by updating the text) and then add your opinion. From there, you can discuss what changes they need to make to land in the ideal quadrant.

Employee development plan

Employee development plans have a wide range of uses, from getting underperforming team members to improve what they’re doing to helping workers add skills to their arsenal. They can be focused on individuals (adding skills) or the team (improving performance) — or both.

You might think it’s counterproductive to have team members adding skills that don’t align entirely with your business objectives. But remember: employees are more likely to remain with an employer if the company invests in their careers, according to LinkedIn .

Use this SMART goals template to set objectives, timelines and methods for improving your employee’s skills. Customize it to your needs by updating the colors and adding new items to each column.

Data visualization has been shown to help with information retention — plus, it just looks cool. Use pie charts like these to help your employees visualize on a 1%-100% scale how well they’re doing at various tasks. And use the second page to expand further on where they could improve.

Work with your staff member to establish the areas where they need or want to learn more and list out the specific steps to get there using this template. Or use it to set goals they want to accomplish as part of their employee development plan .

Training needs assessment

Understanding where deficiencies are is an important part of any employee development plan, and it’s useful in helping your team members set their own career goals. Here are several training needs assessment templates you can use in your business today:

Use this training needs assessment to see your entire team at a glance. Update the columns and rows with your specific needs and see where your teams may be falling short (or excelling!).

Customize this skills checklist for your needs and have your team members fill one out for themselves. Using a method like this can help you better understand how your staffers feel about their contributions to the team — and where they see room for improvement.

Before advancing an employee to a new role or even elevating them to management, assess their positives and negatives using this readiness checklist template.

This multi-page assessment template can help you go into detail on what skills and competencies you expect members of your team to have. While it’s long, it remains accessible because of its clear organization and color-coding.

Use this questionnaire, which was developed for a healthcare setting, to understand more about how your employees rate themselves.

What’s unique and interesting about this template is that it calls for workers to rate both their success in each task and that task’s importance to their job success — which can also help you understand whether your priorities are in line with theirs.

Individual training plan

No worker wants to feel like just another body. But creating a truly individual training plan means sitting down with your team and understanding where they are — and where they need to be. Once you’ve done that, here are some individual training plans you can work together to create:

This individual training plan template is ideal for staffers who need to work on their performance before they fall into the range of under-performing. Having templates like this on hand can help turn you from a reactive manager into a proactive one . In other words, you can head off minor issues before they become major problems.

Work with your employee to determine where they fall on this matrix. Make one quadrant for each of their critical skill sets, determining if the job in question is being done well and how important it is to the success of the employee and the company.

Here’s another alternative to an individual training plan. This template can help employees do some introspection and determine what they want to get out of their jobs and how they might plot out their future with your company.

While this employee evaluation template is geared towards an annual self-review, it can also be useful as the basis for an individual training plan. Work with a single team member, or have each person on your team fill one of these out. Then, work with the group to address each individual’s needs and potential.

Level up your team: the power of personalized training plans 

Use the templates you’ve seen here, or consider them a jumping-off point to leveling up the skills each individual contributes to your team.

And remember, you can customize any of these training plan templates to suit your needs.

With Venngage’s user-friendly, drag-and-drop editor, you can edit the text, colors, icons, images, branding and more — and impress trainees with your professionalism and organizational skills!

Thinkific Plus

How to build an organizational development plan: a comprehensive guide (+template), share this article.

Discover the power of strategic organizational development with our comprehensive plan and access a comprehensive template. Learn how to assess your company's current state, set strategic objectives, and create targeted action plans for growth.

Trying to keep up with the constant changes in the market sometimes feels like you’re a tortoise in a race full of hares. But the tortoise won the race in the end, and by taking the time for proper planning and organization, your organization can too.

Organizational development, or OD, is a process of planned change that seeks to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization. An organizational development plan (ODP) is a comprehensive document that outlines how an organization will go about achieving its goals and objectives. 

It includes strategies for improving overall performance, developing employee skills, increasing customer satisfaction, and more. The ODP allows companies to identify their current strengths and weaknesses to create meaningful plans for improvement. 

By having a clearly-defined plan in place, organizations measure progress over time and make necessary adjustments as needed. An effective OD plan makes an organization more efficient, productive, competitive, and profitable. 

The benefits of implementing an organizational development plan include: 

• Improved employee morale
• Increased collaboration among staff
• Reductions in costs associated with reorganizations or restructurings
• Enhanced customer service levels
• Higher levels of productivity
• Improved communication among staff and management
• More efficient use of resources

Skip ahead:

Assessing Organizational Needs and Readiness

Defining organizational development goals and objectives, identifying key focus areas for improvement, action planning and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, sustaining organizational development, organizational development plan template, case studies and success stories, frequently asked questions.

The first step in crafting an ODP is conducting a thorough organizational analysis. This process involves examining the organization’s current state, including operational effectiveness, efficiency, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and other relevant areas. Gaining a clear understanding of what requires improvement allows the organization to prioritize its efforts accordingly.

Consideration of External Factors

In addition to assessing internal aspects of the organization, it’s crucial to consider external factors that may impact performance – such as economic conditions or industry trends. By taking these outside influences into account when developing plans for growth and competitiveness can help ensure success.

SWOT Analysis

After completing a comprehensive analysis, organizations should use these findings to conduct a SWOT analysis – identifying strengths and weaknesses along with any opportunities or threats present. This information helps create strategies for capitalizing on strengths while minimizing or mitigating weaknesses as well as recognizing potential new revenue sources or competitive advantages.

Developing an Effective ODP

An effective ODP should include concrete steps addressing issues identified through the assessment process (organizational analysis and SWOT). It’s essential to take both internal factors (e.g., company culture, employee morale) and external forces (e.g., competition in the marketplace) into consideration during plan development so that adjustments can be made accordingly for maximum effectiveness.

The second step in crafting an ODP involves defining the organization’s goals and objectives, which will inform decisions about strategy implementation, resource allocation, and progress measurement. It is crucial to establish measurable, clear goals that align with the organization’s values and mission statement for easy progress tracking over time.

SMART Objectives

Once the overall goals are set, organizations should formulate SMART objectives – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound targets. These criteria ensure that achievable targets are established while enabling organizations to evaluate their progress with tangible results. Moreover, these objectives should align with broader organizational goals to guarantee advancement towards larger ambitions.

Aligning Goals with Vision and Mission

Organizations must also ensure that their defined goals and objectives resonate with their vision and mission statements. This alignment allows organizations to optimize resource utilization in achieving overarching aspirations effectively.

Enhancing Decision-Making through Clarity

A comprehensive understanding of an organization’s desired direction facilitates improved decision-making when implementing strategies for growth or improvement. Setting clear organizational development goals aligned with a company’s vision and mission statement, along with well-defined SMART objectives, will enable organizations to navigate successfully throughout the entire process.

The third step in crafting an ODP involves pinpointing key areas for improvement based on the organization’s overall goals and objectives. Both short-term and long-term objectives should be considered when determining focus areas. Involving employees in this process can yield valuable insights into the current state of the organization and potential improvement points.

Developing Targeted Strategies 

After identifying focus areas, organizations can start formulating strategies and initiatives tailored to their specific needs, taking into account existing capabilities and resources. These strategies must be realistic and achievable to ensure success, with employee participation providing valuable input on potential solutions.

Allocating Resources Effectively

Organizations need to determine resource allocation – both financial and human – for each initiative while considering associated costs to maximize efficiency in resource use. Additionally, it is essential to provide adequate training and support for employees involved in implementing these strategies.

Establishing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Lastly, setting up KPIs helps measure the success of implemented strategies over time, allowing organizations to track progress or make necessary adjustments as needed. Common KPIs include customer satisfaction, employee engagement, productivity, and profitability.

An effective ODP should consist of actionable steps to achieve desired outcomes. Break down large strategies into smaller tasks with specific timelines to keep the plan on track and ensure everyone is aware of their responsibilities. Establishing milestones also helps teams stay motivated and measure success over time.

Assigning Roles and Deadlines

Once the plan is broken down into manageable tasks, assign specific responsibilities and deadlines for each step. This approach ensures team members understand their roles in achieving desired outcomes while maintaining motivation through clear expectations.

Communication and Change Management Plans

Develop communication plans to keep all stakeholders informed about progress, allowing team members to voice opinions or suggest changes if needed. A concise communication plan promotes seamless organizational change implementation by ensuring everyone remains aligned at all times.

Risk Mitigation through Change Management

A well-defined change management plan enables teams to identify potential risks early in the process so they can be addressed proactively before becoming issues that could hinder progress.

Building Support among Stakeholders

Engage both internal (employees) and external (customers, suppliers, partners ) stakeholders throughout the planning process for widespread support of your ODP’s goals—this builds a sense of ownership that sustains motivation across all parties involved.

A crucial aspect of a successful ODP is setting measurable, specific, realistic, achievable, and timely goals that align with the organization’s values and mission statement. These metrics serve as benchmarks for measuring progress over time.

Tracking Progress and Milestones

Track progress by regularly assessing the organization’s current state against the ODP’s goals and objectives – enabling the identification of improvement areas or potential roadblocks. Monitoring also allows leadership to acknowledge successes while motivating employees toward further achievements.

Conducting Regular Reviews 

Perform regular reviews to examine organizational performance against established metrics, analyze successes and failures, and identify improvement areas or new growth opportunities – all while making necessary adjustments accordingly.

Maintaining Flexibility in ODPs 

Organizational development plans should remain adaptable based on evolving needs. If progress isn’t being made toward set objectives within the ODP framework, consider changes such as altering processes and procedures, adding staff members, or implementing new technologies.

For organizational development to have a lasting impact, it’s crucial to seamlessly integrate the plan into every aspect of company culture. Begin by clearly communicating the plan’s objectives and strategies to employees, ensuring they understand how their roles contribute to achieving these goals. 

Encourage open dialogue about why specific changes are necessary for both individual growth and overall success. By fostering a transparent environment, you’ll cultivate employee buy-in and facilitate smoother transitions throughout your organization.

Empowering Employees with Resources

Support your team by offering diverse resources tailored to their needs, like customized training programs , engaging workshops, insightful seminars, mentorship opportunities, or access to online learning platforms. 

Providing these tools ensures everyone stays aligned with your vision while knowing what they need to do for collective triumph. Empowering employees with resources helps them feel valued and nurtures personal growth that benefits the organization as a whole.

Cultivating a Learning Environment

Embrace a culture that prioritizes continuous learning and improvement at all levels within your organization. By regularly assessing processes and investing in employee skill development through targeted training initiatives or knowledge-sharing sessions, you’ll stay agile in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape. An ongoing commitment to nurturing talent will not only help attract top candidates but also retain existing talent eager for professional growth.

Acknowledging Accomplishments

It’s essential not just to celebrate major milestones but also to recognize small wins along the way; these acknowledgments fuel motivation, boost morale, and strengthen unity within an organization. In team settings where collaboration is key, recognizing personal contributions fosters camaraderie across all levels while encouraging further cooperation among coworkers.

Sharing success stories internally via newsletters or social media channels can inspire others on how their efforts play an essential role in achieving common goals – ultimately creating a positive feedback loop that benefits everyone involved.

Adapting Through Feedback Loops

Establish feedback loops to fine-tune your organizational development plans (ODP) effectively. These can involve employee surveys, one-on-one meetings, or regular team debriefs where employees openly discuss progress made and any challenges encountered. This regular input from employees helps identify areas needing improvement while adjusting ODPs accordingly.

To get started implementing your plan quickly, try this handy organizational development plan template .

This organizational development plan template provides a comprehensive structure for planning and implementing your organization’s development initiatives. You can customize the template to suit your organization’s specific needs and objectives.

The template also comes with charts for the ten organizational development plan frameworks.

These fillable templates can help you apply each of the ten organizational development frameworks to your organization. Customize them to suit your organization’s specific needs and objectives.

Organizational development plans can be implemented across many different industries. 

Marriott International, a prominent player in the hospitality industry, implemented an organizational development plan (ODP) aimed at enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Leveraging data analytics to pinpoint areas needing improvement, they devised targeted strategies that led to significant growth in customer ratings and an 8% increase in overall profits.

Enhancing Patient Experience in Healthcare

In healthcare, Kaiser Permanente created an ODP encompassing process improvements and employee training initiatives to elevate patient satisfaction levels. This comprehensive strategy resulted in their patient experience scores soaring from an already impressive 84% satisfaction rate to a remarkable 94%.

Streamlining Manufacturing Processes

Toyota’s manufacturing sector adopted an ODP focused on augmenting quality, efficiency, and safety. Consequently, the company reduced production costs by 10% while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction levels by 7%.

The Key to Successful Organizational Development Plans

These success stories illustrate how effective ODPs can benefit organizations across various industries. A well-crafted plan enables companies to monitor progress over time and make necessary adjustments as required.

For optimal results, it’s crucial for ODPs to be tailored specifically for each organization – identifying areas needing improvement while addressing potential obstacles that may hinder growth. Managers play a pivotal role here, ensuring employees comprehend the plan’s objectives and their individual roles within its execution.

Regularly measuring progress allows businesses to stay current with industry trends or internal changes within their organization and make adjustments or updates when needed accordingly.

Finally, communication is essential to keep all stakeholders informed of ongoing progress and fosters transparency while maintaining motivation toward achieving shared goals. 

Organizational development plans are a valuable tool for any type of organization. By creating an ODP, organizations can identify their current strengths and weaknesses to create meaningful plans for improvement. 

An effective OD plan should be tailored to an organization’s needs and goals, measure progress over time, communicate results regularly with all stakeholders involved, and make necessary adjustments or changes if needed. 

With careful planning and implementation, an organizational development plan increases performance, develops employee skills, increases customer satisfaction levels, reduces production costs, improves safety standards, and much more.

Download the Organizational Development Plan Framework: Propel Your Company’s Growth

Drive the growth and success of your organization with our comprehensive Organizational Development Plan Framework. This essential resource provides a structured approach to strategically enhance your company’s capabilities and maximize its potential.

Q. What is an organizational development plan? 

An organizational development plan (ODP) is a comprehensive document that outlines how an organization will achieve its goals and objectives. It includes strategies for improving overall performance, developing employee skills, increasing customer satisfaction, and more. 

Q. Why is an organizational development plan important for businesses? 

An organizational development plan improves performance and gets organizations closer to their goals. It provides a roadmap for the organization to follow to achieve success. 

The ODP outlines specific strategies to implement, such as training programs , process improvements, or changes in organizational culture. Having an effective plan will ensure that resources are allocated properly and progress is monitored over time.

Q. How do I assess the needs and readiness of my organization for development?

Assessing needs and readiness involves evaluating current performance, analyzing data on employee engagement and satisfaction, identifying areas where improvement is needed, and understanding the organization’s goals. 

It also requires looking at external factors that could affect your business such as changing customer demands or market trends. Once you have completed this assessment process, you will be better prepared to develop a comprehensive plan for achieving organizational success. 

Q. What are the key components of an effective organizational development strategy?

The key components of an effective organizational development strategy include: 

• Establishing a vision and mission statement
• Developing core values and objectives that align with the company’s vision and mission statement
• Identifying areas of improvement within the organization and developing plans to address them
• Implementing an effective communication plan
• Measuring progress against established benchmarks to determine success
• Evaluating and revising the ODP as needed based on feedback

Q. How do I implement an organizational development plan within my organization?

Implementing an ODP requires a comprehensive analysis of your current organizational structure and processes. This means assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your current system to identify areas for improvement. 

Once you have identified these areas, you can develop strategies for making improvements. These strategies should be tailored to your organization’s specific needs and goals and may include changes to policies, procedures, or even technology. 

Additionally, all stakeholders must be involved in the development process so that they understand why these changes are being made and how they will benefit them.

Q. How can I measure the effectiveness of an organizational development plan?

Organizational development plans should be evaluated regularly to determine if they are achieving their intended outcomes. Different metrics can be used depending on the type of plan, such as customer satisfaction surveys, employee engagement surveys, and performance reviews. Financial statements and other key performance indicators (KPIs) can give insight into an organization’s overall progress, too.

Q. Are there any templates available for creating an organizational development plan?

There are many templates available online that you can use to create an organizational development plan. These templates usually include sections for objectives, strategies, and action plans. They also offer guidance on what information to include in each section. This template is a fantastic resource for starting your ODP.

Q. Can you provide examples of organizations that have successfully implemented an organizational development plan?

Google has used an ODP to develop its internal structure and culture to create a more collaborative and innovative workplace. Similarly, Amazon has used OD plans to increase customer satisfaction by streamlining processes and creating better communication channels between employees and customers. Apple Inc. has also regularly utilized OD plans to update its product lines for maximum customer appeal and profitability.

Daniela Ochoa is the go-to Content Marketing Specialist here at Thinkific Plus! With years of experience in marketing and communications, she is passionate about helping businesses grow through strategic storytelling, innovative digital campaigns, and online learning at scale.On this blog, she shares her expertise in content marketing, lead generation, and more.

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How to Create an Employee Training Plan [With Templates + Checklists]

Learn step-by-step how to create a customized training plan for your employees. Use our free templates and checklists to help.

Last Updated

May 17 2022

I think we’d all agree that effective employee training is crucial to business success.

(In fact, roughly 70% of teams are investing more into employee training and skill building than in pre-pandemic times.)

As with all areas of your business, effective training requires effective and strategic planning. Here, we’ll be looking at the key elements of various employee training plans — and discussing all that goes into creating templates for all training occasions.

What is an Employee Training Plan?

An employee training plan is a document that describes a training initiative in clear detail.

While individual plans vary in scope, all plans typically explain:

• The purpose and goals of the initiative
• Who is involved, and in what capacity
• How the training will proceed

Training plans can be created for individual employees, specific segments of your team, or for your entire organization to take part in. Plans can apply to short-term (and even one-off) training initiatives, or to more long-term training campaigns.

Throughout this article, we’ll be discussing the many common threads that run through your various employee training plans — and how to use these common threads to develop effective templates for your training initiatives..

Essential Elements of an Employee Training Plan

On that note, let’s take a look at the key elements all employee training plans should include regardless of other variables.

Objectives and Rationale

All training plans should explicitly state the purpose of the initiative, in terms of both the trainee and the company as a whole.

This purpose should be backed by clear rationale, connecting the trainee’s efforts to their future performance — and, in turn, connecting their growth to overall business growth.

(An accompanying business requirements document will be needed to flesh this info out. Check out our recent post for more.)

Targeted KPIs & Measurement Methods

Employee training plans should also define key performance indicators as a way of measuring performance and success.

You’ll also define overarching business KPIs, again connecting employee and team performance to changes in your bottom line.

Audience and Stakeholders

Training templates should identify all parties involved in the campaign — and define the specific role each party will play in the process.

This includes:

• The learner(s)
• The trainer(s)
• The project managers/leaders
• The executive stakeholders

You might include additional info as to how these roles relate to one another, too. Defining dependencies between trainer and trainee, for example, will help streamline the experience for both parties.

Timeline and Scheduling

All employee training templates should provide a timeline for the initiative in question.

Depending on the circumstances, this timeline might define:

• Schedules for training phases
• Deadlines for performance milestones
• Dates for manager check-ins

Training Methods and Procedures

This is the “meat and potatoes” of the employee training template.

The first part of this section will define the training method(s) you’ll be using throughout the campaign.

A few examples here:

• Instructor-led training
• Mentoring and coaching
• Simulation and role-playing

You’ll then provide a detailed description of the learning curriculum, along with checklists and other materials to guide the project forward.

Finally, your employee training templates should include a section listing the various resources you’ll need throughout the campaign.

Some examples of resources you may need:

• Standard operating procedures and other instructional documentation
• Tools and technology to complete tasks and engage with instructional leaders
• External resources (from instructional content to third-party trainers)

Common Types of Training Plan Templates

While you can (and should) create templates for all types of training purposes, you’ll at least want to have the following templates at the ready.

Pre-Training Needs Assessments

Needs assessments are completed before you even begin planning a future training initiative.

In completing a pre-training needs assessment, you’ll:

• Identify gaps in employee skills, knowledge, and/or performance
• Define key performance indicators and other success metrics
• Define business case for training
• Define the best training format and method for the situation
• Set an agenda for the upcoming initiative

( Source / Pre-training checklists can also help prepare the learner for the upcoming session.)

Though you’ll get into more detail when creating the actual training plan, this will set the stage for your efforts moving forward.

Employee Development Plans

Development plans are created for each individual member of your team, and are used to track and facilitate professional growth over time.

Here, you’ll document:

• The employee’s immediate and long-term career goals
• The knowledge and skills they’ll need to attain these goals
• The specific training sessions that will help them learn these skills

Employee development plan templates also have projected timelines for completing training sessions and reaching other professional milestones.

Training Plans for Employee Onboarding

An effective employee onboarding process starts with a solid plan.

Onboarding templates will include information such as:

• The new hire’s responsibilities (with accompanying checklist)
• Who else is involved in the onboarding process, and how
• A timeline for completion of onboarding processes (for both employee and team leads)

( Source / Again, checklists come in handy here.)

Employee onboarding templates should also include additional resources (as attachments, links, etc.) the individual will need to complete the process as planned.

Leadership Training and Development Plans

Leadership training and development plans provide a comprehensive view of your team’s current leadership capabilities — and where you’ll be making improvements in the future.

Specifically, this template will help you:

• Develop your team’s definition of “leader” and “leadership”
• Identify trainings needed to develop your management and executive teams’ skills
• Trace leadership development to improved team performance — and improved business outcomes

Benefits of Creating Employee Training Plan Templates

To be sure, spending the time to create effective employee training plan templates will benefit your team in a number of ways.

For starters, having a plan in place for every training campaign you put together will improve the effectiveness of each campaign from the get-go. This, in turn, will lead to a number of long-term benefits, like:

• Improved employee and team performance
• Increased job satisfaction and talent retention
• Improved teamwork and stronger company culture

Proactively creating employee training templates before you actually need them will be beneficial to your efforts, as well.

• Consistency : Creating training plan templates allows you to take a consistent approach to specific types of employee training sessions. In turn, you can be sure that each training initiative you create uniformly follows best practices and standard procedures.
• Efficiency : With comprehensive training templates in place, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel with every initiative you put together. Just find the template that fits your needs, and hit the ground running.
• Agility : Employee training plan templates are built to be flexible and customizable. While again not requiring you to start from scratch, these templates will allow you to easily tailor your upcoming training initiatives based on your current needs and circumstances.

Best Practices for Creating Employee Training Plan Templates

There’s more to creating effective employee training plan templates than just doing a quick Google search and using another company’s documents.

(Truth be told, even the ones we’ve provided aren’t fully usable in their current condition.)

While these existing templates give you a good start, you’ll still need to tailor them to make them your own — and to ensure they have a positive impact on your team’s training efforts.

As you tweak these training templates to fit your needs, make sure you follow these best practices.

Create Templates for High-Priority Training Purposes

Over time, your goal is to have a template prepared for every possible type of employee training you put on.

But, if you’re just starting to create your template library, you’ll want to prioritize certain types of training templates based on your current situation.

Some factors to consider:

• The impact the training initiative will have on employee, team, and business performance
• How frequently the training takes place within your organization
• How standard (or varied) the training sessions need to be

Again, this all depends on where things currently stand for your company. If, for example, you’re bringing new hires on rapidly and routinely, you’d need to be confident that your onboarding plan is seamless and effective.

(Conversely, if you’re in the midst of a hiring freeze, you can put your onboarding template to the backburner while you focus on more relevant training initiatives.)

On top of streamlining your high-priority trainings, this approach will allow you to give proper attention to the templates that may not be a priority at the moment — but that are no less important to team productivity in the long run.

Get Input From All Stakeholders

Everyone that’s involved in the training in question should also be involved in the creation of the training template.

• Trainers/Facilitators
• Trainees/Learners (current and former)
• Performance Assessors
• Executive team members

Trainers, leaders, and other decision-makers will of course be in charge of developing the templates — whether from scratch or via tweaking a publicly-available document. Here, discussion will be needed to ensure all necessary sections and relevant information is presented clearly within the document.

Trainers, assessors, and even former trainees can help with organization, presentation, and language usage within your templates. In turn, your templates will become more digestible specifically for those who will be using and relying on them most.

In getting input from all involved stakeholders, you can be nearly certain that your training templates provide everything they need to know to get moving.

Communicate Context Within Your Training Plan Templates

Going along with the above, your employee training templates should allow for contextualization of all relevant info.

In other words, it needs to be crystal clear why the information presented in the document is relevant to the situation at hand.

As we’ve discussed, your training plans should always explain:

• What the training entails
• What your performance and business goals are
• Why training, specifically, is what’s needed to attain these goals

This will give your stakeholders a more holistic, “real-world” understanding of your upcoming training sessions.

(This, as opposed to approaching each initiative as if it exists in a vacuum — which would only hinder your efforts moving forward.)

Make Data-Driven Improvements to Your Training Plan Templates

Okay, so the whole reason you’re creating these templates is to use them repeatedly, making relatively minimal changes with each use.

But, you never want to think of these templates as being completely set in stone.

Rather, you should always be looking for ways to improve upon the training templates that are already working wonders for your organization.

(In some cases, improving your templates may be the necessary step toward improving your team’s training-related efforts altogether.)

At the center of these improvement efforts:

This may include:

• Training performance outcomes
• Stakeholder feedback
• Changes in trainee and business performance

You never want to make concrete changes to your employee training templates without concrete evidence and rationale to back them up. Building intentional data analysis into your template development processes ensures you always take this step — and ensures you never adjust your templates based on anything less than the facts.

Document Template Changes (and Lessons Learned)

Internal documentation is a key part of the process, in two ways.

For one, you want to keep a record of the actual changes you make to your training plan templates over time. This will help you track the evolution of these documents — which can in turn help you identify what works (and what doesn’t) when developing employee training plans.

(And, if you need to revert to a previous version of a template, this will make the process super simple.)

It’s also crucial to document the reasons for any changes you make to your templates over time. More than just improving your approach to template creation, this knowledge can potentially allow you to make improvements to your overall approach to employee training as a whole.

The fact is, all relevant knowledge and information your team possesses with regard to employee training can potentially be transformative for your organization.

…but only if you identify it, document it, and make it easily accessible to your teammates and stakeholders.

Which is where Helpjuice comes in.

With our knowledge base software, teams can document any and all organization knowledge with ease. What’s more, you can then use Helpjuice to make collaborative changes to your employee training templates in real-time — based specifically on your data and the insight you’ve gleaned from it all.

Ready to get started? Try Helpjuice completely free for 14 days now!

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Coaching Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Coaching Business Plan

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 500 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their coaching companies. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a great business plan.

In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write a coaching business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >

What Is a Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your coaching business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan

If you’re looking to start a coaching business or grow your existing coaching company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your coaching business to improve your chances of success. Your coaching business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Sources of Funding for Coaching Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a coaching business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for coaching companies.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

How to write a business plan for a coaching business.

If you want to start a coaching business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. The guide below details the necessary information for how to write each essential component of your coaching business plan.

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of coaching business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have a coaching business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a multiple coaching businesses?

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.

• Give a brief overview of the coaching industry.
• Discuss the type of coaching business you are operating.
• Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
• Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
• Offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Overview

In your company overview, you will detail the type of coaching business you are operating.

For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of coaching businesses:

• Business coaching: A business coach specializes in helping business owners clarify their business’s vision and goals.
• Career coaching: A career coach specializes in helping individuals reach their professional goals.
• Life coaching: A life coach specializes in helping people make positive progress in their daily lives, relationships, and careers.
• Performance coaching: A performance coach specializes in helping individuals improve their performance abilities using techniques similar to a sports coach.
• Wellness coaching: A wellness coach specializes in helping individuals develop and maintain healthy habits.

In addition to explaining the type of coaching business you will operate, the company overview needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to questions such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include the number of clients served, the number of cases with positive outcomes, reaching $X amount in revenue, etc.
• Your legal business Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the coaching industry. While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the coaching industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies market trends.

The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your coaching business plan:

• How big is the coaching industry (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your coaching business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your coaching business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, schools, families, and corporations.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of coaching business you operate. Clearly, individuals would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other coaching businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes other types of self-development services, therapists, counselors, and online support groups. You need to mention such competition as well.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as

• What types of clients do they serve?
• What type of coaching business are they?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you make it easier for clients to acquire your services?
• Will you offer services that your competition doesn’t?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.  

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a coaching business plan, your marketing strategy should include the following:

Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of coaching company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you provide performance coaching, executive coaching, health and wellness coaching, or career coaching services?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the site of your coaching company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your coaching business located in a busy retail district, a business district, a standalone office, or purely online? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.

Promotions : The final part of your coaching marketing plan is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
• Reach out to websites
• Distribute flyers
• Engage in email marketing
• Advertise on social media platforms
• Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your coaching business, including answering calls, planning and providing coaching sessions, billing clients and collecting payments, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to book your Xth session, or when you hope to reach $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your coaching business to a new city.  

Management Team

To demonstrate your coaching business’ potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing coaching businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in coaching or running a small business.  

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Income Statement

An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you see 5 clients per day, and/or offer group coaching sessions? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Balance Sheets

Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your coaching business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Cash Flow Statement

Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.

When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a coaching business:

• Cost of utilities, internet service, and office supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Other start-up expenses (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and office furniture

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your office location lease or a list of payment forms you accept.  

Writing a business plan for your coaching business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will understand the coaching industry, your competition, and your customers. You will develop a marketing strategy and will understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful coaching business.

Coaching Business Plan Template FAQs

What is the easiest way to complete my coaching business plan.

Growthink's Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily write your coaching business plan.

Where Can I Download a Sample Life Coach Business Plan PDF?

You can download our sample life coach business plan pdf here.

How Do You Start a Coaching Business?

Starting a coaching business is easy with these 14 steps:

• Choose the Name for Your Coaching Business
• Create Your Coaching Business Plan
• Choose the Legal Structure for Your Coaching Business
• Secure Startup Funding for Your Coaching Business (If Needed)
• Secure a Location for Your Business
• Register Your Coaching Business with the IRS
• Open a Business Bank Account
• Get a Business Credit Card
• Get the Required Business Licenses and Permits
• Get Business Insurance for Your Coaching Business
• Buy or Lease the Right Coaching Business Equipment
• Develop Your Coaching Business Marketing Materials
• Purchase and Setup the Software Needed to Run Your Coaching Business
• Open for Business

Learn more about how to start your own coaching business .

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Coaching business plan?

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.   Click here to see how a Growthink business planning consultant can create your business plan for you.

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Ensure that your training agency is on the right track by using our accessible Training Institute or Provider Business Plan Template. This ready-made fie is perfect for companies that offer short duration courses and seminars for management and professional development. It is professionally-designed and industry-compliant to make sure you'll be able to craft the perfect road map from which your business develops. Use the template and be able to prove the viability of your concept to potential investors and provide them with a clear and engaging reason as to why there is a need for your training programs. Download this useful Template today!

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• Employee Development Plan
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In this article, we will show you how to create an employee development plan that truly works.

Also you will get our template with examples, tips for each stage, and best practices that we use for professional workforce development.

Typically, you would go online and download an employee development plan template. The challenge, however, is that most such templates come with too many assumptions. As a result, they may not fit the developmental needs of your organization.

TIP: Understand that an effective professional development plan should be created for specific roles , departments , or even for a specific person – NOT for the whole organization. Otherwise, the plan will simply be too generalized and unfocused; neither of which will truly help the employee.

Employee development plan template

Our approach to creating customized employee development plans is more of a hands-on approach in which we assess the actual employee or department and formulate a plan specific to their individual goals.

It is based on a tried and tested, a commonsense methodology that delivers tangible results. Our strategy comes without any preconceived notions or assumptions.

By the time you’ve implemented all the steps recommended here, you’ll get a working template and learn how to scale it across your organization.

• Assessing Business Goals
• Communicating with employees
• Reviewing Organizational Workforce
• Setting Employee Development Goals
• Realization Stage
• Reviewing & Monitoring Results
• Going Back to the Drawing Board (if needed)

1. Assessing Business Goals

1) Assessing the Company’s Strategy and Business Goals .

All developmental actions have to be aligned with the Company’s strategy. It is the foundation of the plan, so make sure the objective is clear. If needed consult with upper management or leadership.

2) Create a macro-level assessment of your business .

Points to consider include:

• Where does the business want to be in the next 2, 4, 6 years?
• Where do you see opportunities for improving competitiveness?
• Whether there are business expansion plans (new markets, additional factories/plants/distribution centers)
• What newer technologies are out there that could support your business goals?

Formulate other questions specific to your organization and then sit down, again with management if needed, and answer these questions before developing your plan.

3) Review what’s working and what’s not working in the organization. This can be accomplished through interviews, surveys, or past feedback.

4) Improve . Finally, based on everything we’ve done, make a list of all the competencies and skills needed or a list of improvements that need to be made in order for the company to keep developing in the right direction.

2. Communicating with employees

Employees are key to “employee” development. It’s vital, therefore, that you communicate with them about your business goals and share with them the results of your workforce assessment. Here are some tips to help you:

• If employees’ opinion is valued, their level of interest, loyalty to the employer, and production level increases.
• Communicate frequently: If your assessment and reviews span an extended period – say 2 or 4 months – hold several communication events to keep employees “plugged in”.
• Communicate from the top: Since any employee development initiative will likely involve some changes to “business as usual” for employees, it’s always nice to have high-level executives share those plans with employees.
• Use all tools available: Create a broad-based communication plan, including emails, social media, internal newsletters, company bulletin boards.
• In-person is better than emails: Where possible, hold at least some in-person sessions to communicate with employees. It makes it seem more personal and “warm”.
• Plan for one-on-one communication: While broad-stroke communications can take place in group settings, one-on-one sessions are best to discuss personal professional development plans for each employee.
• Don’t delay communicating such news: The longer you put it off, inadvertently, it fuels unhealthy rumors and confusion.

TIP : The key to making this successful is to continually revisit the concept of collaboration. Employees must be included during all phases; their feedback not only needs to be solicited but regarded. The quickest way to lose your employee’s interest in a new endeavor is for their ideas to fall on deaf ears.

3. Reviewing Organizational Workforce

The goal of reviewing our Organizational Workforce is to gain a deeper understanding of what our employees can and cannot do. We can accomplish this by breaking it down into multiple pieces:

1. Build a Skills Matrix:

Based on the previous step, we now know what we need for development and where the real issues/problems exist. We made lists of skills and competencies that need to be developed or improved.

The next step is to build a skill matrix or competency model based on this information.

We will break this down into two separate divisions: Departments/Teams and Employees/Roles.

1.1 Departments/Teams

Based on the previous step we need to decide what needs to be done in the future, what is being used now and what needs to be improved. This stage obviously requires working with management.

Please take a look at the following example below, Learning & Development Plan 2019 . Note the level of detail; this is an excellent reference for the type of matrix applicable on a departmental level.

1.2 Employees/Roles

This nails it down further based on each individual employee/role and skills.

Please take a look at the following example below, Competences . Note the level of detail for “John Hunter”. Not only have we identified John’s skills (down to specific software), but we’ve also determined the level of proficiency for each.

Why is this needed? This will help us understand which skills already exist in the company/organization, and based on the previous step, make a list of knowledge and skills needed to achieve the desired goals.

2. Evaluate

Finally, we want to evaluate the skills a company needs against the current skills our pool of employees possesses. For example, John Hunter reviews a list of desired skills > he adds the skills he thinks he has > the system or experts verify/grade that he meets the desired skill level.

4. Setting Employee Development Goals

It’s important to develop a plan based on existing resources, abilities and of course, budget. In making a plan, the overarching question should be, “What needs to be accomplished for each role?”

Please take a look at the following example below, Product Area Training Plan 2019 . We’ll use this as an example of how to create a personalized learning path for each individual employee.

1) Make a Learning Path

Here you’ll make a list of courses and activities for each role/team/department.

In our example above, for the Product Area Lead, it would look something like this:

• Introduction- what does it mean to be a PAL?
• Explanation of the development process
• Effective communication skills for communicating with clients
• Coursework: American Business Culture
• Quiz – to ensure the information is retained

2) Activities that cannot be part of the course

These could include the following:

• Participation in workshops (problem-solving, argumentation, working with declines, etc.)
• Using the product – do it yourself, test how the product works
• Meet with the manager to learn more about the product development process
• External materials to read: The Essential Persona Lifecycle

3) Make a list of useful courses

Continuing with our example of PAL above, these could include the following examples:

• Udemy course: Advanced Product Management: Vision, Strategy & Metrics
• Coursera course: Software Product Management Specialization

4) Job rotation

Work trips to other offices or job rotations , for example, transferring developers to USA office:

• The goal is to learn about the problems that clients face
• Participate in 3-5 demos/presentations
• Talk to the head of the department and find out the main problems with the product they are working with, the clients, how can the product be improved (in their opinion)

5) Personal coaching

The employee receives direct coaching based upon needs. This is usually at the request of the employee.

The goal is to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of a defined topic. For example, How can I better track the product development lifecycle?

6) Recommendations for Reading

This is simply a list of books, publications or websites targeted for the employee’s development.

5. Realization Stage

Keep in mind that our goal is to develop each individual employee/department and formulate a plan specific to those needs. With that in mind, one of the easiest and fastest ways (but one that requires budget) is using content providers: Linkedin Learning, Coursera, Udemy, OpenSesame, etc. The ease of access and quality of content makes such providers a valuable resource to consider.

Other methods that require more careful planning can be applied to the entire organization. For example:

• Make a list of conferences for employees, which you consider they can participate in.
• Organize workshops inside an organization, your own employees can be speakers or invite external experts.
• Facilitate group conversations/talks (sales talks, leads, etc.). The main goal of these “talks” is knowledge sharing or to share the methods for accomplishing certain tasks. This is a great way of finding solutions to problems that may have not been previously considered. Topics for such talks can be prepared in advance or can be spontaneous.
• Note: Mentoring should be part of a separate plan. It should include timelines, a list of mentors/mentees, checkpoints and final reviews.

6. Reviewing & Monitoring Results

The question that needs answering here is, “How did our Development Plan influence the processes?”

“Only 8% of CEOs currently see the business impact and only 4% see ROI of Learning & Development”

This is NOT the result we’re going for! However, plans that are poorly constructed, vague or lack follow-through often net these results.

Change this by nailing down what improvements came about as a result of employee development. Understand that creating the plan is just the beginning – it must be implemented and reviewed to have lasting value!

Learn more in our white paper: Achieving Learning Impact: Aligning Corporate Learning For Business Outcomes

Monitoring results : This must be done for individual employees, and for the department as well. Things to monitor include:

• Have individual development and department targets been met?
• Has employee performance improved as a result of the development plan?
• Have problems or challenges been solved?
• Has the plan delivered as expected?
• If there are shortcomings – either pertaining to individual employee development, or in the plan itself, what were the reasons and how do you resolve them?

7. Going Back to the Drawing Board (if needed)

Employee professional development is vital for the organization. So, if you are not satisfied with the feedback you get during the rollout – don’t hesitate to go back to the drawing board.

• Revise/fine-tune components if required
• Hold formal assessment
• Give employees an opportunity to provide feedback and inputs
• Did you address the main question, “How did our Development Plan influence the processes?”

This 7-step employee development plan primarily sets out a series of sequential steps that organizations can take to build a comprehensive plan of their own. For instance, you can’t conduct a Workforce Review (Step #3) without doing a comprehensive Business Goals Assessment (Step #1).

Additionally, when building your own employee development plan, we cannot stress enough the importance of Communicating With Employees (Step #2). Since the focus of the plan is your employees, they must be the center of everything that you do. As a result, Step #2 will likely be a recurring theme through the 7-step cycle.

Bonus: Continuous Learning Approach

Try to build a learning culture in the organization (more information can be found in this article on continuous learning ). The main goal is to promote and encourage continuous development and training.

• Create communication channels for learning and development: Social learning is a powerful tool, one such example being the team collaboration tool Slack, which can also create personal education/learning channels and share useful information.
• Encourage employees to share useful articles and books.
• Allow your employees to select courses that they think will benefit them and compensate them by paying for these courses.
• Hold lunch presentations or discussions on a monthly basis. Provide food and have one of the employees share something about new technologies, something that they recently learned at the conference or course.
• Mentoring is also a great way to promote a learning culture. Offer opportunities for employees to choose the topics they want to learn about and help them find a mentor who has experience and can help them.
• Be open to employees’ ideas – oftentimes, they know much better than management what courses or conferences they need to take/attend to improve productivity/performance.

Develop and Maintain Learning Culture

In this workbook, we put together tips and exercises to help you develop your organisation’s learning culture.

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5 Steps to Creating a Successful Leadership Development Plan

• 27 Nov 2019

Leadership development is a key initiative for many businesses. Organizations not only try to recruit candidates with leadership potential but cultivate their current employees’ leadership skills.

In a survey by global research and advisory firm Gartner , 60 percent of human resources executives said they’ll focus on cultivating leader and manager effectiveness for their company in 2023. In doing so, they intend to nurture the professional development of potential leaders by developing specific leadership qualities, such as authenticity, empathy, and adaptiveness—representing a new kind of “human” leadership.

Additionally, a report by the World Economic Forum projects leadership and social influence to be among the fastest-growing workplace skills through 2022, which ties into a burgeoning trend for all workers to become lifelong learners to address emerging skills gaps.

For motivated professionals who want to advance their careers and assume leadership positions, creating a leadership development plan is vital to staying ahead of the curve and rising to the demands of the job market. According to Harvard Business School Professor Ethan Bernstein, the path to effective leadership is more fluid now than in the past.

“Once upon a time, you would enter a leadership development program in a company that might put you on a 20-year track to becoming an executive,” Bernstein says. “Many of us can’t even fathom that today. But that should be freeing in that it gives us license to develop ourselves and create our own individualized leadership development plans.”

As you plot your career trajectory and consider how you can maximize your professional influence and impact, here are five steps to creating a successful leadership development plan.

How to Design Your Leadership Development Plan

1. assess where you are professionally.

Mapping your leadership development starts with understanding yourself and where you stand professionally. Taking stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and workplace tendencies can help identify areas for improvement and anticipate pitfalls that could arise on your journey to becoming a more capable leader.

“In the process of identifying how what you’ve done before may or may not make you successful going forward, you raise your awareness about how what you already know will contribute to, or undermine, your capacity to successfully lead others in the future,” Bernstein says.

Completing an assessment can be a valuable way to reflect on your motivational drivers and limitations and gain a more holistic view of your personal leadership style . Pairing self-reflection with a 360-degree assessment enables you to solicit feedback from colleagues and peers, which can provide greater insight into how others experience you. In turn, you can build and leverage a keener sense of emotional intelligence throughout your leadership development journey.

Related: 4 Tips for Developing Your Personal Leadership Style

2. Set an Attainable Goal

Goal setting is an essential component of any leadership development plan.

“Just like anything else: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably not going to get there,” Bernstein says. “It sounds overly simplistic, but that summarizes why goals are important."

Bernstein teaches the PACE model, an acronym for:

• Pick a leadership goal
• Apprise others in your inner circle of the goal
• Collect specific ideas on how to improve
• Elicit feedback on how you’re doing

PACE is employed by learners to select leadership development goals and chart a course of action for achieving them. The first step in the process, Pick, is centered on identifying and prioritizing a goal you can strive toward to boost your professional effectiveness. When setting this goal, take an agile approach and consider both the short and long term.

“You can’t lose sight of where you’re trying to go over the span of a decade—or even a career—which is why making long-term goals is important,” Bernstein says. “But we can’t, as human beings, make progress if we make the milestones so grand and far away that they seem unachievable. A little bit of progress each day keeps the frustration at bay.”

As you define and establish your key goal, consider how you’ll measure progress along the way to ensure you stay on track.

3. Engage in Leadership Training

Leadership training can benefit you no matter your career stage. Beyond the opportunity to gain and practice the technical skills needed to empower employees and influence others , you’re exposed to faculty and peers you can lean on for support and learn and grow from. It can also equip you for future leadership roles.

According to Bernstein, honing your leadership abilities in a classroom setting is advantageous because it provides a low-risk environment for reevaluating and fine-tuning goals when you encounter setbacks.

“It’s helpful to have a group of people—we call it your ‘inner circle’—who’ve heard and embraced your leadership goals, and whose conversations helped inform how you would go about achieving them,” Bernstein says. “In moments of challenge and relapse, you can go back to them for encouragement and courage. You can revise your goals in a safe environment because you have a level of openness and vulnerability with those people built into the course.”

4. Interact with Your Network

A professional network is one of the most valuable resources in any leader’s arsenal, so make it a point to grow yours . Throughout your leadership development journey, connecting with like-minded peers can have a positive impact by providing opportunities to employ the knowledge you’ve gained and receive feedback on your progress.

These kinds of interactions are core tenets of the online course Leadership Principles , in which learners practice delivering feedback through video exercises that allow them to evaluate their effectiveness in various business scenarios.

“Ensure your leadership development includes some interaction with other learners and also with the people who are benefitting and suffering from your current capabilities as a leader,” Bernstein says. “We try to teach people to be good protégés, as well as good leaders. It’s an ongoing process. That interaction is important in making things that seem very theoretical ultimately become very practical.”

5. Hone Your Soft Skills

Effective leadership requires a unique blend of characteristics and skills .

“There are skills you need as a leader that you don’t necessarily develop in any other context, at least in a focused way,” Bernstein says. “These include communication; career planning; knowing how to create and evaluate authentic change in a person, including yourself; and negotiating career transitions. These are things you typically won’t do many times in your career, but they will be very important to continuing your leadership trajectory.”

As you chart your leadership development plan, consider how you can bolster essential soft skills like actively listening , practicing empathy , and creating value in a negotiation to ensure you’re prepared to tackle any organizational challenges that come your way.

Developing Your Leadership Skills

Striving to become a strong, capable leader is a commitment you can make at any stage of your career —although doing so sooner means you can reap the benefits longer. By assessing where you are professionally and thinking deeply about where you want to go, you can design a leadership development plan that enables you to channel your passions and build the skills needed to be more impactful in your role.

Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Download our free leadership e-book and explore our online course Leadership Principles to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.

This post was updated on December 21, 2022. It was originally published on November 27, 2019.

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12 inspiring employee development plan examples (+ templates).

Whether you’re a startup of 50 or an enterprise of 2000, your people are at the forefront of your organization. And if there’s one thing that guarantees a successful business, it’s investing in your employees' career growth .

Picture it: Your employees, thriving, engaged, and ready to conquer new challenges.

But how do you get there? How do you create employee development plans that work?

We're giving you 12 inspiring examples of employee development plans. For all these employee development plans, we go through what they do well - and how to improve them .

We also share our development plan template that you can copy right away .

‍ 🏫 Basic employee development plan  (Indeed)

Creating a basic wireframe of your employee development plans is a good way to kickstart this program. Here is a sample template taken from the career website Indeed .

While it’s basic and not specialized for a role or even an industry, this sample development plan guides you to think in the right direction.

The biggest advantage of this template is that it’s a blank slate and gives you the freedom to customize it (via Microsoft Word or Google Docs).

At the same time, it comes with a drawback. You need to closely follow each employee’s progress to be familiar with their strengths, weaknesses, and desires for their future careers.

To make it even better:

• Start with listing the strengths, needs, and professional goals of each employee . This creates an opportunity for you to spend 1:1 time interviewing your employees, and build a development plan that aligns with their expectations. 
• Next, create an actionable list of steps they need to take to grow in their current roles. This is a great practice to gain foresight into how your company and each department will scale in the months and years to come.

💰 Employee development plan for company growth (Slideteam)

Similar to the previous example, here’s another template from Slideteam – one that can be used across different industries and roles.

This is a great example of a career development plan best suitable for a junior accountant role. One of the key highlights of this plan is that it has a section for estimated costs .

There are two main benefits of this template: ‍

• First of all, it gives you an overview on how much budget needs to be allocated per employee. This means that your employees will know from the start that you’re willing to invest in them - they can see cold, hard numbers rather than promises you make.
• At the very end, there’s a section for manager notes . As hard as we might try, we often cannot categorize and label all of our employees. This section gives you some room to leave additional notes for individual employees.

To make it even better, create a more comprehensive follow-up process, to ensure that the employee stays on track, offer feedback , and provide additional support if they ever get stuck.

💬 Career development plan example with comments (Lumenlearning)

Here is another great example of an employee development plan by Lumenlearning , complete with manager notes.

This employee development plan spans over two years and has comments from the manager related to the assessment of their employees’ skills as well as specific plans for the future.

In this plan, you can see the manager taking care of external training in the form of courses and degrees, as well as internal training through one-on-one mentorship .

One thing that sets this template apart compared to the previous ones is that it has accountability for both – the employee and the manager.

While the manager is in charge of designing the development plan and choosing the right activities, the employees are given the responsibility to create their own timeline to complete the assigned tasks.

This is a great way to present the potential of career development to your employees. Through this, they can see the possibilities for the development of their role. At the same time, they can realize that the success of this plan largely depends on their own willingness and hard work. This is strengthened by the fact that this is a long-term, two-year development plan and not a short-term initiative.

To make this development plan example even better, se the SMART goals framework . With specific, measurable sub-tasks and a set time frame, it is easy to measure one's professional development.

🌱 Learn how to help employees set professional development goals . ‍ 💡Plus, use these examples of developmental goals and ways to achieve them as inspiration.

🛠 Skill-based development plan (Devskiller)

The examples we shared above, all focus on the bigger picture: the soft and technical skills as well as the necessary training to develop an employee’s career.

However, you don’t have to go into such level of detail if you plan to develop skills by yourself.

Here is an example of such an employee development plan from Devskiller:

The plan is quite simple: managers list their employees’ skills and grade them on a scale from 0-10. Then, there is a "Desired State" explaining what the manager expects from the employee to advance in their careers and within the company.

The "Gap" section defined what employees need to advance in their careers. The "Initiatives" section offers the specific actions that they need to take to achieve their goals.

To make this example more impactful:

• Ensure that your skill-focused development plan is not exclusively based on the managers’ assessment of employee skills ( skills gap analysis ).
• To achieve this, add employees’ self-assessments and even peer reviews to get more accurate results, and to prepare an effective skill-based development plan.

👥 Side-by-side employee development plan example (Smartinsights)

Here is another example of a detailed individual development plan by Smartinsights.

There are three elements that that set this plan apart:

• There are two sections : one for the employee and another for the manager , adding an organizational context to the employee perspective.
• There is a clear alignment between the individual career goal and the organizational needs and goals.
• There are dedicated sections for progress reporting and feedback sessions. ‍

Having these two sections in one place gives a clear overview of the two different perspectives: individual and organizational.

For example, you understand whether the self-assessment of the employee is objective or not.

Overall, this is a perfect example if you’re looking for a template that makes the employee and their manager equally responsible for planning and execution.

🎓 Professional development plan example (University of Wisconsin)

Let's analyze a new professional development plan example, this time from the University of Wisconsin.

What’s interesting here is that the employee is the one who is responsible for doing all the "development work:"

• They have to search for a peer member to shadow, rather than receiving a specific suggestion from their leader.
• They have to search for their own learning resources, rather than receiving access to a library of learning materials.

To make this even better, make development planning a more collaborative task. The team leader can act as a coach and facilitator, for example by assigning tasks to mentors, providing access to training materials etc.

🅰️ Individual employee development plan example  (Adobe)

Although single on first sight, the individual development plan example from Adobe masters startegic alignment.

The first part of this plan example focuses on employee self-reflection on:

• the most satisfying part of the job;
• key skills or strengths;
• skills or strengths to further develop.

By identifying their unique strengths and skills, employees can focus on areas where they excel and build on their strengths , which can lead to increased engagement, job satisfaction, and productivity.

The plan then differentiates between short and long-term goals. This approach can help the employee prioritize their development efforts and stay on track toward their goals.

We really like that each development opportunity links to concrete action items. This will ensure that the employee has a clear roadmap to follow and understands how their development activities contribute to their professional growth. And to go one step forward, these also clearly link to business impact.

Strategic alignment between employee and company objectives mean that the employee's development efforts will also contribute to the organization's strategic priorities and goals.

📚 Learning and development plan example  (DCU)

The learning and development plan example from Dublin City University is the most comprehensive plan example.

This plan contains sections that outline the specific what, how, when, who, and cost components of the plan, which can help to ensure that the employee and their manager are aligned in terms of expectations and goals.

We also really like the progress evaluation section is essential in a development plan. This section encourages self-reflection by asking questions such as:

• What will I do differently as a result of this experience?
• How will I continue to build on these skills?
• How can what you learn outside of work be integrated into your job to further your career?

The fact that this development plan covers multiple types of learning methods is also helpful, as this allows the employee to choose the learning method that suits them best.

The only elements we think are missing are:

• A dedicated section for manager comments.
• A lack of a clear link between development opportunities and business impact. While it's essential to develop employees' skills and competencies, it's also important to ensure that these activities aligned with the organization's strategic priorities.

📈 Performance development plan example (Reading University)

This performance development plan example from the University of Reading presents several assets:

• It allows the employee (and any reviewer) to reflect on their past performance and identify areas for improvement. This can help the employee to set clear goals and develop a plan for achieving them.
• The tips and recommendations included in the plan can also be useful for employees who are unsure of how to proceed with their career development. These resources can provide guidance on how to set goals, identify learning opportunities, and create a plan for achieving career objectives.
• The dedicated space for achievements and recognition can serve as motivation and reminder of specific employee strengths.

To improve this performance development plan example:

• Include a space to document whether your employee's future professional goals align with the organization's goals or objectives. If the employee has aspirations that are not aligned with the organization's strategic priorities, as it may be more difficult to support their career development.
• Add a section for available development budget.
• Add a follow up section, where you can take notes during the development conversations that would happen throughout the 12 months that the plan covers. ‍

🤝 70-20-10 Individual development plan (University of Michigan)

The individual development plan example from the University of Michigan starts off with an expectations model (The Michigan Expectations Model - MEM). MEM identifies 12 benchmark behavioral standards that all staff should demonstrate.

This sample development plan started with concrete guidelines for employees.

The concrete steps that people need to take for creating an individual development plan are:

• Self-assess.
• Identify areas of development .
• Select the resources to address gaps or build on strengths.
• Create the plan.

When creating their individual plan, each employee should set maximum 3 development goals. And they should formulate them with the SMART goals framework (to ensure they set specific goals that are time bound).

For defining the hows to achieving their goals, employees need to use the 70-20-10 developmental approach. For each goal, they need to define the different types of growth activities.

The employees are also encouraged to share the plan with a supervisor or mentor to see where they can help.

To make this individual development plan even better, add a concrete timeline for each step. Plus, add milestones to keep people motivated to keep on working toward their goals.

✍🏻 Formal performance and development plan example (Washington State)

This Performance & Development Plan example from the state of Washington looks more formal than most of the examples we reviewed so far.

We can definitely see that this is more than a development plan. The link to performance improvement is clear from the sections on performance expectations (key results and core competencies ) and organizational alignment.

To make this performance and development plan even better, start by adding a section for stating the employee goals. Then, add a new section with a concrete deadline and the given time frame for meeting the goals.

💼 Check out our complimentary resource with 7 individual development plan examples for leadership.

🌱 Bonus: Employee development strategy (MongoDB)

This employee development strategy example from MongoDB showcases the 70-20-10 model of learning :

• 10% formal training
• 20% Social learning though: manager support, coaching, comparing experiences with peer
• 70% on the job learning, feedback, stretch-assignments.

You can also use the 70-20-10 model for employee development planning, steering employees towards learning on the flow of work .

🚀 Learn how to implement an organization-wide employee development program in 8 steps.

📝 Development plan  templates

The easiest way to get started is by using our career development plan templates.

They combine the best of above worlds without requiring too much effort.

Option 1: 🧾  Excel-Template

Download the 🧾 Employee development plan template

Option 2: 📄 PDF-Template

Download our 📄 Employee Development Plan Template

Performance improvement plan template

Use performance improvement plans for employees whose performance has been taking a dip. You can see PIPs as roadmaps that show employees how to get to their destination of increased performance.

🆓 Download the free employee performance development plan template.

➡️ Prioritize people over paper: Run employee development with Zavvy

Imagine a world where employee development is streamlined, efficient, and effective:

• A world where your development strategy goes beyond merely setting up plans people might not use.
• A world where development programs and plans actually help your people grow (and engage and retain your high performers in the process).

That's the power of Zavvy.

No more getting lost in the paperwork shuffle. No more wasted time. A seamless, easy-to-use tool that puts your people first.

Those unsure about the best steps for achieving personal development goals, can enlist the help of Zavvy AI . Add the goal and the desired timeline and watch the AI work its magic.

Your employees deserve the best. And so do you. It's time to embrace the future of employee development! ‍ ‍

📅 Request a demo and get started with your customized employee development solution. ‍ ‍

What are types of employee development plans?

1. Competency enhancement plan : This plan focuses specifically on enhancing an employee's current skill set, making them more proficient in their current role.

2. Career advancement plan : Targeted towards employees looking to move up within the organization, this plan is about preparing for future roles and leadership positions.

3. Performance improvement plan (PIP) : Aimed at employees who might be struggling to meet their current job expectations, this plan identifies areas for improvement and outlines steps to elevate performance.

4. Professional growth plan : This plan focuses on the broader professional development of an employee, incorporating elements like certifications, continued education, or attending conferences/seminars.

5. Cross-training plan : This type of development method allows employees to learn skills outside of their current role, promoting versatility and flexibility within the organization.

6. Onboarding/Induction development plan : Specifically for new employees, this plan accelerates their integration into the company by focusing on both job-specific skills and broader company culture and values.

7. Succession planning : Specifically designed for potential future leaders, this plan prepares employees to fill key leadership roles as they become available.

What is a good development plan for an employee? ‍

A good development plan for an employee is a strategic document that:

• Is specific : Clearly defines what the employee aims to achieve, whether it's learning new skills, taking on more responsibility, or advancing to a higher role and exploring leadership abilities.
• Is measurable : Outlines clear metrics or benchmarks to measure progress.
• Is actionable : Lists tangible steps or actions the employee will take.
• Is realistic : Considers the employee's current skills, workload, and external factors, ensuring that the goals are attainable within the given time frame.
• Is time-bound : Sets a clear timeline for each objective and the overall plan.
• Addresses both strengths and weaknesses : While it's crucial to improve areas of weakness, leveraging and expanding upon employee strengths can be equally beneficial.
• Is aligned with organizational goals : Ensures that your people's personal progress contributes to the larger objectives of the company and organizational performance.
• Provides resources : Identifies necessary resources like courses, mentors, books, or workshops that will facilitate growth.

What are the five components of a development plan?

- Self-assessment : This is the starting point where employees assess their current skills, strengths, weaknesses, and career aspirations. It helps in identifying gaps and areas of growth.

- Clear growth objectives : These are specific, measurable goals that the employee aims to achieve through the development plan. Objectives give direction and purpose to the plan.

- Action steps and strategies : For each objective, there should be a set of clear, actionable steps that detail how the employee will achieve it. This could involve training sessions, mentorship, or taking on new responsibilities.

- Resources and support : This component outlines what resources (like courses, books, or tools) will help the employee achieve their development and career goals. It also identifies any support they might require, be it in the form of mentoring, coaching, or feedback.

- Timeline and review mechanism : This sets a clear timeframe for achieving each objective and establishes regular check-ins to review progress, make adjustments, and provide feedback. It ensures accountability and keeps the development plan on track.

What does a performance development plan look like? ‍

A performance development plan typically consists of the following elements:

• Objective : A clear statement of the performance goal or improvement area.
• Current performance : A summary of the employee's current performance or current skills.
• Desired performance : A description of the expected level of performance or specific skills after the plan is completed.
• Action items (actionable steps) : A list of specific actions the employee will take to bridge the gap between current and desired performance.
• Resources : Tools, training, or other resources (e.g. articles, webinars, animated flipbooks , shadowing) needed to complete each action step.
• Timeline : A schedule indicating when each action step should be completed.
• Feedback and monitoring : Details on how progress will be monitored and who will provide feedback.
• Evaluation : Criteria or measures to assess the success of the plan upon completion.

What is a development action plan? ‍

A development action plan is a structured document or tool that outlines an individual's goals for professional growth and the specific steps or actions they need to take to achieve those goals. It typically includes a timeline, resources required, potential challenges, and measurable outcomes to evaluate progress.

How do you write a development action plan? ‍

To write a development action:

1. Clearly define the desired outcome or skill to be developed.

2. Break down the larger goal into smaller, actionable steps.

3. Identify the resources or tools needed (e.g., training programs, mentorship, books).

4. Set a realistic timeline for completing each action step.

5. Determine how progress will be measured or evaluated.

6. Regularly review and adjust the action as necessary based on feedback and results.

Lorelei is Zavvy's Content Marketing Manager. She is always on the hunt for the latest HR trends, fresh statistics, and academic and real-life best practices to spread the word about creating better employee experiences.

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